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JAMES RYDER RANDALL 
I907 



The Poems of 
James Ryder Randall 



Edited with 

Introduction & Notes 

by 

MATTHEW PAGE ANDREWS, M.A. 



NEW YORK 

THE TANDY-THOMAS COMPANY 

1910 



,*"" 



V 



Copyright, igo8, by 
John Murphy Company 



Copyright, IQIO, by 
Matthew Page Andrews 



All Rights Reserved 
Entered at Stationers' Hall 







PREFACE 

IN 1908, shortly after the death of James Ryder 
Randall, there appeared a small volume of his poems. 
The material was incomplete, hastily prepared, and 
hurriedly printed. It is the purpose of this edition to 
present other and hitherto unpublished verses, with a 
rearrangement of the whole; to correct the numerous 
errors and misprints, adding explanatory or suggestive 
notes ; and to prefix a biographical sketch of this poet- 
laureate of the Southern Confederacy. 

Some of the poems included in this edition are 
believed by students of his verse to equal or surpass, in 
point of poetic art, his battle-song, which, wed to 
martial music, has become world-famous. The poet 
himself felt this. It may well be asked why their 
publication has been so long delayed : why the author of 
Maryland! My Maryland! in his lifetime did not receive 
wider recognition as a poet of originality and power 
in other forms of verse. 

The reply is that, while Randall was by no means the 
first genius to lack contemporary appreciation, his 
unusual attitude toward his own productions tended to 
work against his gaining distinction. He never wrote 
a line of verse for pecuniary remuneration ; and, per- 
sistently refusing to publish his collected works, he 
gave away his poems to any one who asked for them, 
often preserving no copies; so that when finally per- 
suaded, within a few weeks of his death, to begin to 
collect his verse, he was at a loss to know where some 
of it could be found. Moreover, his prime of life was 



vl PREFACE 

spent in an impoverished and war-stricken land, strug- 
gling for a bare livelihood ; while those who by their 
appreciation might have upheld him were, like him, 
wholly given over to efforts to save themselves and 
the South from anarchy and social subversion.* 

The biographical material and notes are given pri- 
marily at the suggestion of Mr. James Bryce, who 
stated in conversation with the editor touching the 
above points in Randall's career, that he, more than 
others, stood in need of this in connection with the pub- 
lication of his poems. The notes are given with more 
than usual fulness at the request of many of the friends 
of the poet, including the president and faculty of his 
alma mater, Georgetown University, to whom the editor 
owes thanks for aid in the preparation of the volume. 
Valuable assistance has also been rendered by Miss 
Lilian McGregor Shepherd, whose devotion to the 
best interests of the poet made it possible to compile 
his work. The editor wishes especially to thank Miss 
Ruth Randall and the poet's family in Augusta for 
placing material at his disposal; Dr. W. P. Trent, of 
Columbia University, Dr. James W. Bright, of Johns 
Hopkins University, and Mr. William Tappan, of The 
Jefferson School, Baltimore, for criticisms and sugges- 
tions ; also Dr. A. K. Bond for reading of material in 
original and proofs, and Mrs. Hester Dorsey Richard- 
son for endorsement of the genealogical data as given 
in the biographical sketch. M. P. A. 

*See Charles Francis Adams's review of the fifth volume of 
James Ford Rhodes's History of the United States from the 
Compromise of 1850. 



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PAOS 

PREFACE v 

INTRODUCTION I 

I. EARLIER POEMS 

Mary, My Heart. . . 37 

To Mary 38 

An Acrostic 4° 

Impromptu - 4 1 

To the Old College Bell - 42 

Flourine 44 

Gehenna 45 

The Grand Duke 47 

The Cobra Capello 49 

Jamais 52 

Clay 53 

Ode to Professor Dimitry 56 

Marathon f 50 

II. POEMS OF LOVE AND SENTIMENT 

The Oriel Window 63 

The Damsel of Mobile 66 

Ha! Ha! 67 



viii CONTENTS 

PAQB 

Ma Belle Creole 70 

Palmistry 72 

To the Queen of the Wax Dolls 73 

Stone Apples 75 

Anima 79 

Eidolon 81 

Alexandrine 84 

Speaking Eyes 87 

My Bonny Kate 89 

III. WAR POEMS AND ELEGIES 

Maryland! My Maryland!. .^ 95 

Pelham 98 

There's Life in the Old Land Yet 100 

The Battle Cry of the South 102 

At Fort Pillow 105 

John W. Morton. 109 

The Lone Sentry in 

On the Rampart 113 

The Cameo Bracelet 116 

Placide Bossier 1 18 

Our Confederate Dead 119 

Memorial Day 121 

Charles B. Dreux 123 

Ashes 125 

The Unconquered Banner 126 

At Arlington 128 



CONTENTS ix 

IV. MISCELLANEOUS POEMS PAQE 

Silver Spring 133 

Keats 136 

The Unbought Seminole 138 

The Willow 144 

Far Out at Sea 147 

Architecture 149 

Guido's Aurora 151 

Palinodia 152 

Isis 154 

Lines on Growing Old 158 

I'm Not a Poet Now 159 

Sarcastic 162 

Silhouette 163 

Malison 166 

Madame La Grippe 168 

Night and Day 171 

Adieu 172 

La Fete Des Morts 174 

Sunday Revery 176 

The Place of Rest 180 

After a Little While 182 

Mother and Daughter 184 

iV. POEMS MEMORIAL AND RELIGIOUS 

Why the Robin's Breast Is Red 189 

Magdalene 190 



x CONTENTS 

PAOX 

Bereft 191 

Labor and Prayer 193 

Cuthbert 195 

Lost and Saved 198 

Resurgam 202 

NOTES 207 



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PAGB 

Portrait of Randall in 1862 Frontispiece 

Letter from Oliver Wendell Holmes 17 

Facsimile of "Mary, My Heart" 36 

Baltimore in 1862 94 

The Sixth Massachusetts in Baltimore, Apr. 19,1861. . 206 



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INTRODUCTION 

I. BIOGRAPHICAL 

JAMES RYDER RANDALL was born in Balti- 
more, Maryland, January i, 1839. He came of 
an ancestry that was marked by a strange intermingling 
of conflicting creeds and warring peoples. The five 
generations before him in maternal and paternal ances- 
try represented English Episcopalians, French Catho- 
lics, Irish Church of England adherents, and Maryland 
Catholics. The old French Bible handed down in the 
Randall family shows that the poet was a direct de- 
scendant of Rene Leblanc, the "gentle notary" immor- 
talized in Evangeline. Rene's daughter, Marguerite, 
married in Maryland Cyprian Dupuis, a fellow-exile 
from Acadia, and their daughter wed William Hooper, 
who was descended from the Massachusetts family 
represented in the signing of the Declaration of Inde- 
pendence. In another line the prominence and popu- 
larity of the Irish branch of the family is still attested 
by a magnificent silver punch bowl, inherited from 
Archbishop Killen of Dublin. 

The early training of the poet was under the guid- 
ance of his mother, to whose memory he wished that 
every line of his should be dedicated. Subsequently 

1 



2 JAMES RYDER RANDALL 

he was placed under the somewhat severe discipline 
of Mr. Joseph H. Clarke, who had the distinction of 
having taught Edgar Allan Poe. Later young Randall 
entered the preparatory department of Georgetown 
College as the youngest and smallest boy that had ever 
been received as a student. Although but eleven years 
old, he sent home stanzas entitled On First Seeing 
Georgetozvn College. It is needless to add that these 
will scarcely bear comparison with those addressed to 
the Distant Prospect of Eton, but they were preserved 
by his mother and were more precious to her than the 
verses which a decade later formed the most spirited 
appeal to arms in the English tongue. 

It was not long before Randall was achieving dis- 
tinction at Georgetown. To quote the words of Mr. 
Caleb E. Magruder, a college mate, who delivered an 
address on the unveiling of the portrait of the poet in 
the State House at Annapolis in 1909 : 

He was soon regarded as the poet of the college by 
students and faculty. He wrote poems for the under- 
graduates for delivery at the commencement exercises, 
one the story of the Mother of the Gracchi, and the other 
the Pass of Thermopylae* which were regarded as master- 
pieces for one of his youthful years. His talent ran de- 
cidedly to belles-lettres , as we knew literature in those 
days. His constant companion was the newest book of 
this kind. He it was who first called my attention to the 
weird beauty of The Raven, and so impressed me with his 
exuberance of appreciation of it that I could but feel that 
he was possessed of a glowing poetic temperament which 



♦Neither poem has yet been found. 



INTRODUCTION 3 

the stress of life and maturity of years would undoubtedly 
reveal. Byron was his favorite author, while Shelley and 
Keats were scarcely less an inspiration. Without the 
extreme weirdness of Poe and the unhappy disposition of 
Byron, he still somewhat temperamentally combined the 
natures of both. 

After leaving Georgetown, Randall traveled through 
the Gulf States, the West Indies, and South America. 
His travels made this a period of observation, mental 
growth and expansion. Several of his poems bear 
reference to the places he thus visited in his post- 
graduate wanderings, as Eidolon in the following lines : 

Dark Corcovado, did I not, 

With heart and soul aflame, 
Carve on thy broad monarchal brow 

Her wildly worshiped name? 
Watching the homeward ships scud by 

Before the nimble breeze; 
Till memory with them swept away 

Beyond the tropic seas. 

These verses were written at the age of nineteen 
upon his return to the United States. After a brief 
sojourn in New Orleans, he accepted the chair of Eng- 
lish literature at the then flourishing Poydras College 
at Pointe-Coupee in Louisiana. Here he was destined 
to immortalize his name through the inspired stanzas 
of Maryland! My Maryland! Until this time, no verses 
of the young poet had displayed any of that tense 
feeling that was thrilling all the air of the sections 
about to engage in bloody strife. But the news of 
conflict came from his native city ; and soon in printed 



4 JAMES RYDER RANDALL 

form he read the account of the clash in the streets of 
Baltimore. He read of the wounding of a classmate — 
the first to fall — shot down by the passing soldiers. 
This occurred on the 19th of April ; and his friend, in 
falling, had cried that it was another Lexington.* 

Randall felt that the South was indeed invaded. The 
night after reading the news he could not sleep, and, 
after restlessly pacing up and down his r6om, he seized 
a pencil and wrote, by the light of a sputtering candle, 
the fervid lines of Maryland! My Maryland! 

The next morning the verses were mailed to the edi- 
tor of the New Orleans Delta. They appeared at once 
and spread through the South like wildfire. In Mary- 
land their effect was magical. They were read to the 
poet's mother in Baltimore, who, not knowing their 
authorship, exclaimed, "Oh, that they had been my 
son's I" And if the unexpected realization of this wish 
made the devoted mother proud, keen must have been 
the joy of the young poet, from childhood an admirer 
of Byron, when he received from a member of the 
family of that English genius a letter requesting a 
manuscript copy of the poem and inviting the author to 
visit London. 

Maryland! My Maryland! was soon followed by 
other war songs of the Confederacy, and the singer 
sought active service in the Southern armies. But 
shortly after enlisting he was mustered out because of 
severe hemorrhages of the lungs. He had had in the 
space of a few years eleven of these hemorrhages. 



♦April 19, 1775. 



INTRODUCTION. 5 

Randall was a romantic youth, and, to his disadvan- 
tage in practical affairs, was perhaps over-idolized by 
the fair sex. Even in the years of the Civil War, he is 
found to have been frequently inditing softer strains, 
now to Ma Belle Creole, now to The Damsel of Mobile 
or to other gentle fancies of the time being. It is pos- 
sible that Malgherita, one of the daintiest of musical 
fantasies, is the one sentimental ballad of his that was 
wholly the result of fancy without a mortal form as the 
exciting cause. However, one of his lyrics (which the 
reader is left to discover among his poems) may be 
said to strike a final note in his love verses. In a rail- 
way coach, near the close of the war, he borrowed a 
newspaper — a rare sight in the South in those days — 
from a young lady. It is not recorded whether he 
really wanted the paper or ever read it, but it 
is recorded that he took occasion to meet the fair 
stranger afterward and that she, the daughter of 
General M. C. M. Hammond, of South Carolina, be- 
came his wife, while the newspaper was the Augusta 
Chronicle, with which he was in later years so long 
associated as Washington correspondent and as editor. 

From now on, Randall, essentially a dreamer by 
nature and impractical by disposition, was compelled 
to undertake an uphill struggle so difficult and so 
unceasing in its continual drudgery, for the most part 
in a newspaper office in Georgia, that the muse of 
poetry was neglected; in fact, during this time he 
became so greatly changed that when he again visited 
his native State the companions of his youth could 
scarcely recognize in him those poetic attributes and 



6 JAMES RYDER RANDALL 

aspirations that had so characterized him some twenty 
years before. 

For many years, Randall was secretary to Con- 
gressman William H. Fleming, of Georgia, and after- 
ward to Senator Joseph E. Brown, during which period 
he was brought into close contact with prominent men. 
His letters to the Chronicle were widely quoted by his 
contemporaries and prove interesting even to the reader 
of to-day. Occasionally his true poetic nature would, 
in some chance hours amid his conscientious labors on 
his clerical duties, break forth into verse, which was 
generally of a deeply reflective or religious nature, as 
in Resurgam. 

Except for these visits to Washington, Randall had 
established himself, for forty years and more, far from 
his native city and state. But in 1907, under the 
auspices of the appreciative Edwin Warfield, at that 
time Governor of Maryland, a plan was suggested for 
the official recognition and material support of the poet 
who had so immortalized his State in song. He was 
the guest of the city of Baltimore in the home-coming 
festivities of 1907. He renewed his friendship for the 
Hon. William Pinkney Whyte, then at the age of 
eighty-four, an active member of the United States 
Senate, who made arrangements for the publication of 
the poems, the compilation of which his later and most 
devoted friend, Miss Lilian McGregor Shepherd, alone 
was able to induce him seriously to begin. To her 
were penned his last words of longing for his native 
State of Maryland, written from Augusta and received 
by her on the day of his death, January 15, 1908. Sus- 



INTRODUCTION 7 

tained by an unfaltering religious faith, he had no fear 
of death, but his days had been the days of a dreamer 
buffeted by, and in turn buffeting, a sea of troubles. 
He gave the best he had to his friends, his life to his 
home and family, to his native State an immortal name, 
and to the English language perhaps the greatest of 
all battle-hymns. 

II. CHARACTER AND PLACE IN AMERICAN LITERATURE — 
AN ESTIMATE OF THE MAN AND THE POET 

From his earliest years, when Randall's character 
was being molded by his mother, to the days of his 
death it was the sympathy and faith of women that 
most sustained him when throughout his life he was 
"breasting the blows of circumstance." When his 
dreamy forgetfulness of self and self-interest would 
exhaust the patience of the merely practical, he would 
ever be sure of consolation in the friendship of appre- 
ciative women. 

Although the poet has testified that in early life he 
"shunned the narrow path," he did not wander long 
or far, but being by nature religiously inclined, he 
became one of the most devout members of the Catholic 
Church in America. His faith was sublime and beau- 
tiful. Whatever the storm and stress of the time, he 
never neglected any form of religious observance that 
he deemed a part of his earthly duty toward his Maker. 
In his last letter to Miss Shepherd, his "daughter" in 
Maryland, he exhibits his patient resignation and trust 
in Providence. After writing of his great longing in 



8 JAMES RYDER RANDALL 

his latter days for his native State, and of his severe 
struggle for a living even in his declining years, he 
adds: 

I have so long submitted to what I felt was God's will 
that whenever I am not supernaturally helped to go where 
I wish, I patiently wait for the deliverance and always 
find it for the best. Wherefore, using every human effort 
to get back to Baltimore, what can I do but await the 
summons from on high and the necessary pecuniary sup- 
port?* 

Randall should not be termed sectional or narrow. 
He was one of the most liberal and forgiving of men. 
In the war he sang of the South and linked his name 
with a cause lost by the arbitrament of arms. He 
struck out passionately at the foe in his poems on the 
Civil strife; yet not in a spirit of drawing invidious 
comparisons, but of interest in a comparative study of 
poetic expression in the embattled sections, we find a 
great deal of verse by the Northern bards as hotly 
phrased as any by the author of Maryland! My Mary- 
land! and The Battle Cry of the South. While Randall 
was writing of the "despot's heel" and the "tyrant's 
tread", f his later friend and generous admirer, Oliver 



The reference to pecuniary support was in connection with 
the plans of Randall's friends to present a bill in the Mary- 
land legislature to engage him to supervise the collection and 
cataloguing of historical documents in the State archives at 
Annapolis. It should be said here that if the poet was neglect- 
ful or impatient of detail or drudgery, it was with regard to 
his own interests alone. 

tSee the beginning and the end of his war-poems. 



INTRODUCTION 9 

Wendell Holmes, wrote similes on the "angels that 
fight with the legions of hell"* or metaphors on the 
"Sons of Belial" within their "heathen walls." There 
is no reason now for passions to be aroused over the 
poetic expressions of either section. The South and 
the North may unite in praising the beautiful in both, 
for immediately upon the publication even of Randall's 
incomplete poems in 1908 he was hailed by a prominent 
and ardent lover of the Quaker poet as "The Whittier 
of the South." If we consider Randall's terms over- 
drawn and too general at times, let us read of the suf- 
ferings in the war-despoiled South and then compare 
Whittier's fierce and sweeping denunciation of the 
South and Southerners even in antebellum times. 

It is difficult now, at the time of issuing this first 
complete collection of the poems of James Ryder Ran- 
dall, to foretell what place will be given him in Ameri- 
can literature. It has been said that "Whenever a true 
child of song strikes his harp, we love to listen." It is 
certain that Randall has done one thing superlatively 
well. What has he done in different vein to delight 
lovers of the poetic art? The fame of the martial 
Maryland! My Maryland! obscured even the name of 
this most modest of American bards and hid the fact 
that he had written other verse destined to delight the 
ear by its music and diversity of rhythm and to gratify 
the mind by originality of thought. Very few are those 
who have never heard Maryland! My Maryland! yet 
how many there are who have not known of the author ! 



♦From Choose You This Day Whom Ye Will Serve, 



io 'JAMES RYDER RANDALL 

A handsomely printed collection of Southern Poems, 
published in Philadelphia as late as the beginning of 
the twentieth century, ascribes Randall's most famous 
battle hymn to a scribbler whom Randall himself had 
once exposed as a false claimant to Mrs. Beers's All 
Quiet Along the Potomac ! Others of Randall's poems 
have been falsely claimed, and many of them have been 
printed anonymously in "carefully compiled" collec- 
tions of the songs of war times. 

If Maryland! My Maryland! be taken as a type of 
the poet's war verse, Why the Robin s Breast is Red is 
a poem in religious vein, telling a sacred myth-story 
with exquisitely beautiful simplicity. This poem, which 
would honor the genius of any poet, was printed and 
reprinted in the newspapers of the South and, without 
acknowledged authorship, preserved in almost every 
scrap-book in the Southern States. Illustrating another 
phase of Randall's poetic expression is the poem en- 
titled Ha! Ha! (or Malgherita), a musical fantasy of 
which Poe, the master of rhythmical swing, might well 
have been proud. 

Until recently Maryland has been singularly neg- 
lectful of the bard who wrote the greatest of our State 
songs. A belated move was made to honor him shortly 
before his death, and subsequently the Legislature 
unveiled his portrait at Annapolis. His friends and 
the lovers of his verse in his adopted State of Georgia 
have suitably marked his last resting place in Augusta, 
and purpose erecting a handsome shaft in a prominent 
city thoroughfare, taking for part of the inscription 
this stanza from one of his poems : 



INTRODUCTION I* 

After a little while, 
The cross will glisten and the thistles wave 

Above my grave, 

And planets smile. 
Sweet Lord! then pillowed on Thy gentle breast, 

I fain would rest, 

After a little while. 

III. THE HISTORY OF "MARYLAND ! MY MARYLAND!" 

The facts that follow have been gathered from the 
poet, his family, his closest friends, and some of the 
actors in the presentation to the world of Randall's 
famous battle-song. Because so much that is mistaken 
in every imaginable manner and detail has been pub- 
lished concerning it, the complete story is here given. 

James Ryder Randall wrote Maryland! My Mary- 
land! at Poydras College, April 23, 1861. It was in- 
spired during the sleepless night that followed the 
reading of an account of the clash between the citizens 
of Baltimore and the Sixth Massachusetts marching 
through the city to Southern soil, in which the first 
citizen to fall on that second 19th of April notable in 
American history was a friend and college mate of the 
poet. 

Randall was then but twenty-two years of age and 
Poydras College a tolerably well-endowed Creole insti- 
tution at Pointe-Coupee. But subsequent fires have 
destroyed every object associated with the writing of 
Maryland! My Maryland! — from the desk of the poet- 
teacher to the buildings of the college itself. 

The morning after the composition of My Maryland! 
the poet read it to his English classes, who received it 



12 JAMES RYDER RANDALL 

with enthusiasm. Upon being urged to publish it, the 
youthful instructor at once forwarded it to the New 
Orleans Delta, where it first appeared on April 26, from 
which paper the words were reprinted by newspapers 
throughout the Southern States * In Maryland the 
poem was first published, May 31, in The South, a. 
paper established in Baltimore by Thomas W. Hall, 
who was shortly thereafter confined in Fort Warren 
for spreading such "seditious sentiments." It was pub- 
lished in various forms in the poet's native city of Bal- 
timore, where it was evident that the majority of the 
leading people, through close association with South- 
erners in business and social relations, sympathized 
with the South and were bitterly opposed to the in- 
tended coercion of the seceding States. 

While the words and sentiments of "the new Seces- 
sion poem" thrillingly appealed to Southern sympa- 
thizers, the music lovers of Baltimore saw in the swing 
and melody of the verse unexampled opportunity for 
some immediate musical adaptation in song. Henry 
C. Wagner, of the poet's native city, was the first to 



♦The editor of the Delta, Mr. D. C. Jenkins, had already 
published some of Randall's verses, and had sent him early in 
April a copy of the poems of James Clarence Mangan, whose 
Karamatiian Exile "solved the meter," as Randall expressed 
it, of My Maryland!, when the poet, in shaping the form of his 
verse, "turned to that passionate outburst." As Randall al- 
ways freely acknowledged his debt to the " gifted Irish Poet " 
for the meter of My Maryland!, it is to be hoped, now that his 
collected poems are published, that this note will render ridicu- 
lous the further " discovery " from time to time of " Mangan's 
influence " on My Maryland! 



INTRODUCTION 13 

sing My Maryland! adapting it to the air of Ma Nor- 
mandie! a then familiar melody. Although not accom- 
panied by the music, thousands of broadsides were 
printed in June with a note that the words were to be 
sung to the air of the French song. But though the 
French language was the means of starting My Mary- 
land! on its melodious song-life, it was through the 
medium of the German that it attained its final form 
and immortality. Among the famous beauties of the 
Baltimore of 1861 were the Cary sisters, to whose home 
as loyal Southerners My Maryland! soon came. The 
fiery appeal to Southern valor was declaimed again and 
again by one sister, Miss Jennie Cary, to her sister 
Hettie, afterward Mrs. H. Newell Martin, with the 
expressed intention of finding a fitting musical accom- 
paniment for the verses ; and this search was continued 
until the then popular Lauriger Horatius was tried 
and thereupon adopted, and that night in the Cary home 
in the entertainment of a local glee club, "when her 
contralto voice rang out the stanzas, the refrain rolled 
from every throat present without pause or preparation, 
and the enthusiasm communicated itself with such 
effect to a crowd assembled beneath our open windows 
as to endanger the liberties of the party."* 

The recurring "Maryland" of the second and fourth 



♦Written by Mrs. Martin, at the request of Dr. Brander 
Matthews, in the Century of August, 1886, under the title of 
Songs of the Civil War. The writer, then the wife of Pro- 
fessor H. Newell Martin, of Johns Hopkins University, was 
the Miss Hettie Cary who had first played the music of My 
Maryland approximately to its present measure. 



14 'JAMES RYDER RANDALL 

verses of each stanza in the poem required an addi- 
tional "My Maryland" to adapt the words to the meter 
of Lauriger Horatius. Of this Miss Jennie Cary 
writes, February 22, 1908: "The additional 'My Mary- 
land' was a musical necessity and came to me as a sort 
of inspiration." It has been stated that Mr. Rozier 
Dulany, of Baltimore, originally proposed this addition ; 
but Miss Cary affirms that shortly after her sister set 
the words to music, she met Mr. Dulany, who stopped 
her to ask if she "had read the new poem/* "Not only 
have I read it, but I have sung it to music," she replied. 
From her, she says, he got the musical setting and 
doubtless hurried off at once to the gathering place of 
"The Monument Street Girls," composed of strong 
Southern sympathizers, where the Maryland! My 
Maryland! air was enthusiastically received and sung. 
It was here suggested to Mr. Dulany to have it pub- 
lished in musical form, but he replied to the effect that 
Fort McHenry was much too near and the idea of 
imprisonment was not attractive. Then one of the 
young girls present exclaimed: "I will have it pub- 
lished; my father is a Union man, and if I am put in 
prison, he will take me out." She then took Lauriger 
Horatius in a Yale song-book to her father's house 
near by ; and after copying the music, carried it to the 
publishing house of Miller & Beacham. She explained 
her errand and asked that the verses and music be 
published for her. This was agreed upon, the publish- 
ers supplying her with the first copies from the press, 
besides sending her other Southern songs until they 
were arrested and put in prison. 



INTRODUCTION 15 

It is a remarkable coincidence that this young girl, 
Miss Rebecca Lloyd Nicholson, should have been the 
grand-daughter of Judge Joseph Hopper Nicholson and 
his wife, Rebecca Lloyd, who figured so largely in the 
adapting of the Star-Spanglcd Banner to the tune of 
Anacreon in Heaven and who had it published in musi- 
cal form. The grand-daughter carried the words and 
music of Maryland! My Maryland! to the publishers in 
1 86 1 as her grand-mother had done with the S tar- 
Spangled Banner nearly fifty years before.* 

As Mr. Wagner had not found the vehicle for the 
final musical expression of My Maryland! in Ma Nor- 
mandie! so the tune, as it left the hands of the Misses 
Cary and Miss Nicholson, was not entirely suitable 
without some change in Lauriger Horatius. It is 
readily seen that the music of Lauriger Horatius is not 
precisely that which was first printed in the adaptation 
of Maryland! My Maryland! nor is it the same now 
used ; so that the story of the musical setting is incom- 
plete without reference to Charles Ellerbrock, a young 
German music teacher and Southern sympathizer, who 
at that time was in the employ of Miller & Beacham, 
and who changed the musical adaptation of My Mary- 
land! from the Yale song to the statelier measure of its 
original, Tannenbaum, O Tannenbaum\ 



♦Miss Nicholson, named Rebecca Lloyd after her grand- 
mother, inherited, through her relationship to Francis Scott 
Key, the original manuscript of his famous song, which was 
written on the back of an envelope. 

tin the form of the musical version of Maryland! My Mary- 
land! as it first appeared Randall's name as author is not 



16 JAMES RYDER RANDALL 

The song that was now ringing, under suppression, 
in the homes of Baltimore was soon to burst romanti- 
cally upon the field of the first Confederate triumph. 
On July 4, 1861, the Misses Cary, with their brother 
and friends, "ran the blockade" to Orange Court 
House, Virginia. After their arrival at Orange, and 
subsequent to the first battle of Manassas, General 
Beauregard, hearing of their labors on behalf of the 
Marylanders, invited them to pay a visit to his head- 
quarters near Fairfax Court House, sending a pass 
and escort. The party encamped in tents prepared for 
them by a kinsman, Captain Sterrett, who had been in 
charge of the fortifications at Manassas. On the eve- 
ning of their reaching the place appointed for them, 
they were serenaded by the famous Washington Ar- 
tillery of New Orleans, aided by all the fine voices 
within reach. Captain Sterrett expressed their thanks, 
asking if there was any service that might be rendered 
in return. The reply was, "Let us hear a woman's 



given, but Charles Ellerbrock's initials appear as having 
"adapted and arranged" the music. This "C. E." has generally 
been held to be meaningless in itself, as Miss Nicholson, when 
asked what name should be used in connection with the pub- 
lication, had told the publishers, in order to shield the cautious 
Mr. Dulany, "to take any initials but 'R. D.' " Afterward 
Mr. Ellerbrock adapted to music several other Southern songs, 
signing "C. E.," "Charles Ellerbrock," or "Charles W. Eller- 
brock." His full name was Charles Wolfgang Amadeus Eller- 
brock. He warmly espoused the cause of the Confederacy, 
and escaping attempted arrest for his Tyrtaean labors in setting 
to music "seditious songs," he joined the Confederate forces 
and served throughout the war. 







<^fe^%^ 



LETTER FROM OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES 

(Facsimile of a letter to Mr. Charles Strahan) 



INTRODUCTION 19 

voice." So, standing in the tent door under cover of 
the darkness, Miss Jennie Cary sang Maryland! My 
Maryland! The refrain was caught up and tossed 
back from hundreds of "rebel" throats. "As the last 
note died away," writes Mrs. Martin, "there surged 
from the gathering throng a wild shout, 'We will 
break her chains — she shall be free ! Three cheers and 
a tiger for Maryland !' There was not a dry eye in the 
tent and, we were told the next day, not a cap with a 
rim on it in camp."* History does not record another 
such dramatic inception of a war song on the field of 
battle.f 

IV. INCIDENTAL AND ANECDOTAL 

No sketch of James Ryder Randall would be com- 
plete without reference to his felicity in prose compo- 
sition while editor or correspondent of newspapers in 
Georgia. His letters from Washington were illumined 
by such clearness, force, and aptness of expression as 
to be widely quoted before lost in journalistic oblivion. 
If his war poems were written in a war spirit, no less 
were his political letters written in a spirit of peace 



*Songs of the Civil War, The Century, August, 1886. 

tit has been affirmed and widely quoted that Randall received 
$100 for My Maryland! The fact is that an appreciative reader 
and friend sent him, as author of the poem, some time after its 
publication, $100 in Confederate currency, with which he may 
have been able to purchase a pair of shoes ; but he did not 
solicit or receive direct compensation for any of his poems, a 
statement which, in all probability, can be recorded of no other 
modern poet of genius or reputation. 



20 JAMES RYDER RANDALL 

and good feeling. I lis eulogy of President Garfield 
after his assassination was reprinted in pamphlet form 
and distributed in the North by one of those invaders 
of his "Mother State" whom he had once lashed in 
battle verse. To some the following words, written to 
the Augusta Chronicle shortly before Garfield's death, 
would seem to have conveyed an unheeded prophecy. 
He closes his letter of May 19, 1881, as follows: 

Pondering over the startling events of the past few 
months, and feeling that mammoth surprises were to 
come, I fell into a sort of day dream. Garfield is said 
to be much shaken over the vicissitudes and trials of his 
position, and his poetic temperament has been rudely 
shaken by the incessant and sometimes masterly attacks 
made upon him, especially the charge that he is the con- 
venient instrument of Blaine's malice, and that to gratify 
his Secretary of State he has driven a wedge into the 
Republican party. The illness of his wife depresses him 
sorely; the more so as he probably suspects that it is the 
attack made upon him that is killing her. He is just the 
kind of man to die under some prodigious calamity. Did 
it ever occur to you what his death means? It means 
the Presidency in the hands of Mr. Conkling, for Arthur 
is only Conkling's projected shadow. In the event of 
Mr. Garfield's death, what will become of Mr. Blaine? 
The death of Mr. Garfield, you say, is improbable. Grant- 
ed. But I trust that there is not in this connection a weird 
significance in the declaration of Lord Macaulay that 
"The improbable always happens." 

Many of those interested in the heated debates of 
1879 w ^ recall the clash between Conkling and Lamar 
in the United States Senate, which made political his- 






INTRODUCTION, 21 

tory in New York State. Under date of June 19 
Randall writes: 

The Weather Bureau prophet never knows when a 
cyclone is at hand and never has had the luck or skill to 
fling out a storm signal in advance of the wrath to come. 
It is the same thing here at the Capitol. The man does 
not live, from Sam Ward to the youngest page, who can 
forecast trouble, cyclone-like, in Senate or in House. It 
is true that Senators Vance and Blaine contrived yester- 
day to illuminate some lively talk on books, but this was 
not convulsive beyond the ordinary. It is true that this 
primer palaver touched Voorhees to the quick and gave 
him the opportunity to make a really eloquent, if some- 
what volcanic, speech, in which he poured out the fires 
of ^tna and the lava of Vesuvius upon Brother Blaine 
and his fellow radicals. This was exciting and sprightly 
for the Senate, but not without precedents of frequency. 
None of these things, superadded to Beck's heavy blows 
upon Morrill, an old-womanly man who takes punishment 
with sanctimonious self-sufficiency, petticoated with cant — 
none of these, I say, prepared the most experienced ob- 
server for the grand explosion that was to follow between 
Conkling and Lamar. The New York Senator, politically, 
is the most offensive of the human race. He is either by 
nature or acquirement, or both, a bully and a phrase- 
maker. His manner to Democratic Senators is haughty 
beyond the power of language to express. It must, in the 
language of the side-show, "be seen to be appreciated." 
He has a cold, contemptuous glare of the cruel gray eyes, 
a gesture that suggests the ringmaster, a wrinkle of the 
nose that intimates the impertinence of any fellow-crea- 
ture remaining erect in his imperial presence, the general 
attitude of a person who fancies himself the Supreme 



22 'JAMES RYDER RANDALL 

Being, and a comprehensive air of pride incarnate inspired 
by the divinity of hate. His language is the most stately, 
the most elaborate and the most cynical that flows from 
mortal lips by improvisation. You may well understand 
the power of these marvelously developed gifts, when 
backed by a capacious and well-equipped intellect — an in- 
tellect massive and alert, practical and cultivated, expert 
by long training and morbidly imperative by reason of 
many successes. When the Democrats were in the minor- 
ity, he had them somewhat at his mercy, until General 
Gordon brought him to the ultima ratio of many gentlemen 
and some Senators. Since that time the New Yorker has 
been icily polite to the Georgian and reasonably courte- 
ous, for him, to every one else in the Senate. Now and 
then he would wanton on the perilous verge of mortal 
insult, but would extricate himself by an ingenuity of 
statement that never failed, while it left a sting behind, 
to save the epidermis of the assailing gladiator. The fact 
of a Democratic majority in the Senate has been gall and 
wormwood to Mr. Conkling, and in his lordly opera- 
bouffe manner he evidently resents it as a personal in- 
dignity. Brooding over this intolerable grievance, he had 
accumulated an amount of explosive material that only 
needed an opportunity to precipitate a disturbance. About 
half-past one this morning, suddenly, unexpectedly, like 
magic, the emergent chance was created out of the sim- 
plest materials, and the catastrophe, in the fiercest dra- 
matic form, culminated. If a few days ago anybody had 
predicted that Mr. Lamar would forge the thunderbolt 
that dissolved in Mr. Conkling's hand and may politically 
destroy him, such a person would have been laughed at. 
Mr. Lamar has sat here for many days in quiet retire- 
ment, taking no part in the debate. He is as much a mas- 
ter of language as Mr. Conkling, but possesses a trait or 



IXTRODUCTION 23 

virtue totally lacking in the New Yorker — modesty. He 
never mouths or rants, or poses for the ladies' gallery. 
He is serious, learned, eloquent, honest, eccentric some- 
times, the soul of honor, intrepidity personified. A man 
so constituted is plainly the last person for a braggart to 
attack, in the Senate or out of it. That Mr. Conkling 
should have exercised his worst form of insult upon Mr. 
Lamar was the sublimity of madness or audacity. I 
think Mr. Conkling had a touch of lunacy which, at mid- 
night, he miserably mistook for valor. You have already, 
on the wings of the lightning, been made acquainted with 
the main incidents and exact words that, over the English- 
speaking world at least, have "made history" for two ex- 
traordinary men. I need not repeat the scene: The 
charge of bad faith ; its indignant repulse ; the lying 
brand; the bucket-shop retort through all the gamut of 
the subjunctive mood — these things I need not reproduce. 
But it must be recorded that when Lamar, with absolute 
calm and awful deliberation, said: "I have only to say 
to the Senator from New York that he understood me 
correctly. I said precisely the words that he understood 
me to say. My language was harsh and unparliamentary, 
and I beg the pardon of the Senate for it; but my lan- 
guage was such as no good man would deserve and no 
brave man would bear." Mr. Conkling lay like Goliath 
in the dust, with a great gash upon his brazen front, while 
over him the Mississippian stood in very majesty. 

Another political prophecy of Randall's was made in 
June, 1880. After eulogizing General Horatio Ewing 
and discussing the political situation in Ohio, he says 
enthusiastically : 

General Ewing is one of the noblest of mankind. He is 
deduced from a sturdy Revolutionary stock and has in- 



24 JAMES RYDER RANDALL 

hcrited the virtues and intellect of his eclehrated father. 
He is one to be loved as well as admired; for he is as 
gentle as he is brave, as tender as he is upright. . . . What 
a wonderful State is Ohio ! What an array of remarkable 
men she has in all ranks of life! How conspicuously she 
shines everywhere! She is indeed the young Giant of 
the West, and from her confines will probably come the 
next President of the United States, be he Democrat or 
Republican. 
Randall was right and Garfield was chosen. 

A story of the maneuvers behind the scenes of the 
august Senate should be preserved to history from the 
correspondence of Mr. Randall. Writing from Wash- 
ington in May, 1881, he says: 

The final scenes of the special session were purely 
formal. The Senators were anxious to get away, and busi- 
ness was dispatched expeditiously. The only imperturba- 
ble person was the venerable Isaac Bassett, who, appointed 
a page by Daniel Webster 52 years ago, has been in serv- 
ice as doorkeeper for I know not how long. No political 
changes affect him. Democrats and Republicans come and 
go; great men rise and vanish; but Mr. Bassett, with his 
natural forces still unabated, remains at his post, and no 
one dreams of disturbing him. . . . One of the duties 
of Mr. Bassett is to manage the Senate clock; not to 
wind it, but when a final adjournment has been fixed at 
a certain moment, and it is inexpedient for one reason 
or another to do so, he takes a long pole and tames the 
fiery, untamed hour hand. What he does during the 
recess I know not — probably haunts the deserted chamber 
and renovates it. But whether Congress be in session or 
not, the model doorkeeper preserves his equanimity. Mr. 



INTRODUCTION 25 

Webster co-operated with Providence when he introduced 
Isaac Bassett into public life. 

Randall's tributes to the character and genius of 
his fellow poets were sublimely beautiful without ex- 
travagance or forced expression. From the numbers 
of letters received by the Augusta Chronicle on the 
subject of Randall's contributions one may here be 
quoted : 

Yesterday by accident a copy of your paper fell into my 
hands. It contained two notable things, which I take to 
be from the same hand: One a poem, Rcsurgam; the 
other what may well be called a prose poem on the death 
of Father Ryan. . . . Either one or the other is enough 
to entitle the author to fame. It seems a pity that the 
man who has the great gifts which are evidenced in these 
two productions should be doomed to the cart-horse work 
of rough-and-tumble journalism. Surely there is no higher 
gift than that which enables a man to move the deepest 
chords within us by the exaltation of his thought and 
the high harmony in which it is given expression. Such 
a man deserves praise, deserves to have public approval, 
and such approval I am anxious to contribute to by thus 
calling attention to my own honest estimate of these 
beautiful productions. — Theodore C. Cone, Washington, 
May 15, 1886. 

It should be recorded of Randall that it was his pen 
that first effectively pleaded the cause of an American 
memorial to Edgar Allan Poe. He had, as the Wash- 
ington correspondent of the Augusta Chronicle, when 
on a visit to his mother in Baltimore, "made a pil- 
grimage" to the poet's then neglected grave in the 



26 JAMES RYDER RANDALL 

Westminster churchyard. Immediately afterward he 
wrote a letter to the Augusta paper on the subject. It 
was clipped out by a friend and sent to Mr. George W. 
Childs, of Philadelphia. The appeal resulted in the 
raising of the necessary funds and the erection of the 
monument in Baltimore. 

One curious incident in the journalistic career of 
this Southern poet-dreamer, whose adventures at times 
remind us of those of Goldsmith, should be recorded. 
Preserved in the scrap-book of Mrs. Randall are a 
number of editorial notices of her husband's removal to 
Alabama. The poet was attracted thither in the middle 
eighties by "the most flattering and alluring overtures 
to become interested in and the editor of a new daily 
paper in Anniston, Alabama, one of the new industrial 
centers of that empire-commonwealth of riches." This 
quotation from the Philadelphia Times is taken at ran- 
dom ; but we note with a feeling of respect and admira- 
tion that no Northern contemporary mentioned, in con- 
nection with the fact, the name of the journal he under- 
took to edit. To write it then in relation with the 
author of Maryland! My Maryland! would have ex- 
cited wondrous ridicule. It was the Anniston Hot 
Blast! To quote from the Macon Telegraph: 

For Randall to be at the head of a journal devoted to 
such hard facts as pig-iron looks to us like putting Saladin 
to carving gate-pegs with a scimitar. But we are on the 
verge of an era of national success, and when we have 
made money we shall turn to the softer side of life. 

This last sentence offers explanation for the remark- 
able removal; so let us draw the curtain down upon 






IXTRODUCTION 27 

the subsequent disillusionment of Randall's promised 
El Dorado. The pig-iron was successful, materially — 
to others ; but we may imagine a true poet writing daily 
encomiums, editorials, or advertisements dedicated to 
the promotion of blasting and freight cars ! 

Not many years after the writing of Maryland! My 
Maryland! Mrs. Randall named a little daughter 
"Maryland" after the poet's native State, saying: 
"Should the poem die and our daughter live, or the 
daughter die and the poem live, in either case you will 
have My Maryland." But My Maryland! was destined 
to live not alone in Dixie or Maryland, but in the North 
and throughout the world as well. 

Among other anecdotes mentioned by Mr. J. C. 
Derby in his Fifty Years Among Authors, Books and 
Publishers is that told by Mr. John R. Thompson, long 
connected with The Southern Literary Messenger, who 
was in London when the poem was first published. On 
his return he said to Mr. Randall that he "envied him 
beyond all living men because he had met in a drawing- 
room in London one of the most charming and beauti- 
ful of women who had asked him if he would like to 
hear a song of his Southern country. Upon his reply- 
ing in the affirmative, she went to the piano and struck 
up My Maryland! When she had finished she returned 
to where he was sitting and said, 'When you see your 
friend who wrote that tell him that you heard it sung 
by a Russian girl who lives at Archangel, north of 
Siberia, and learned to sing it there' " 



28 'JAMES RYDER RANDALL 

The following letter from Boston May 28, 1878, tells 
of the strong hold Maryland! My Maryland! gained 
upon the generous-hearted of opposite sympathies only 
some ten years after the war. This letter is printed in 
full as one of many hundreds expressing genuine feel- 
ing from writers of either section and every State : 

150 Huntington Avenue, 
Boston, May 28th. 
Mr. James R. Randall, 

Dear Sir: Don't consider me an intruder, or regard 
me as a great annoyance, but I do want to ask you where 
I can get the words to the beautiful Maryland! My Mary- 
land! 

I have made Florida my home for the past ten years, 
and am now living in Boston to educate my sons; so I 
feel that I am almost a Southerner, quite one, so far as 
love for the South is concerned. The first winter I spent 
there I learned from a lovely Southern lady the words, 
as nearly as she could remember them, but I have never 
felt satisfied that I had them right. I have sung the song 
a hundred times, always electrifying any Southerner who 
was present, and even the coldest-hearted Northerner has 
never failed to acknowledge the grandeur and soul-stirring 
effect of the words — the words, be it understood, for I 
am not a great singer, but my friends think I put my soul 
into that song, and I do certainly love to sing it. Did I 
not fear to worry you I could tell you how I have sung 
it in a Jacksonville hotel, in a crowded parlor, until every 
one in the room was on his feet and ladies crowded 
around me exclaiming with their eyes all aflame with 
patriotic fire: "If I could have heard that song once a 
year since the surrender, I should never have been re- 
constructed," etc., etc. I could tell you of a dinner party 



INTRODUCTION, 29 

right here in conservative Boston at the residence of a 
wealthy gentleman, the portrait of whose only son with 
his cap and sword under it hung on the wall in full view 
as I sat at the piano after dinner. 

Now, the gentleman who took me in to dinner was 
presented to me as being from California, but at the table 
in conversation I spoke of the son of the house killed 
during the war, remarking the desolation it brought to 
so many homes. Then, speaking of the hardships of the 
soldiers, asked if he was in the army. He said: "Oh, 
yes, I went with a New Orleans regiment." No one else 
heard the remark or imagined him to have been a South- 
erner, but I planned then to sing "Maryland" to stir him 
up. So now, in response to "just one more," I com- 
menced : 

"The despot's heel is on thy shore." 

The effect was magical. My escort, who was seated near 
me, but out of sight, I could hear catching his breath, 
and when I sang "For life or death, for woe or weal, 
thy peerless chivalry reveal," he sprang to his feet and 
almost unconsciously approached me, where he stood trem- 
bling with the rush of memories and the flood of emotions 
almost forgotten ! He said he had not heard it since the 
surrender, and the last time he marched with his regiment 
they sang it going to the battle which resulted so disas- 
trously for them. 

My host, scarcely less affected than his guest (for he 
had never heard it), right in the sight of the son who 
had died on the other side, said: "I never heard any- 
thing to compare with that. It is even more grand than 
the Marsellaise. Why was there never a national song 
to equal that?" Their wonder at the excitement of the 
stranger was answered when they learned that he was 



30 JAMES RYDER RANDALL 

from the South, and they "did not wonder that the South 
held out so long, if they had that kind of music to live 
on." ... I should like to tell you of many other incidents 
that have occurred in connection with my singing the 
song, but refrain from fear of wearying you. . . . 
Yours gratefully, 

Harriette E. Benedict. 

Randall on one or two occasions was nominated 
for political office, but he failed of election. He did 
not know the meaning of "policy" and its devious 
workings, or he might have succeeded. He was abso- 
lutely innocent of all idea of self-advertising. Refer- 
ence has been made above to the handsome volume of 
Southern poems published in Philadelphia as late as 
1904 with Maryland! My Maryland! credited to Lamar 
Fontaine. There are many other amusing instances of 
the blissful ignorance of writers and editors concern- 
ing the authorship of Randall's scattered or random- 
given verses as well as his political, philosophic, and 
religious essays. This lack of knowledge embraced the 
life of Randall as an author, when recognized as 
such. A prominent New England newspaper published 
concerning him when in New Orleans : 

The Mr. Randall, who is clerk for the Kellogg investi- 
gating committee, is not the author of My Maryland, as 
reported. That gentleman has been dead fifteen years. 

Upon reading this, Mrs. E. J. Nicholson, a poet 
known throughout the South as "Pearl Rivers," sent 
the "obituary notice" to Mr. Randall, who replied : 

This announcement may surprise many persons in Au- 
gusta and several other places. During the past fifteen 



INTRODUCTION 31 

years I have done quite a number of things to substan- 
tiate my vitality, at least. In your cemetery I once stum- 
bled upon the grave of James Randall, but it never 
occurred to me that he had been my double in nature as 
well as name. Possibly I walk the earth as specter of 
what I was or should have been. It may be the editor 
meant to imply that the poet had died in me fifteen years 
ago, and that, with the "Lost Cause," the singer is no 
more. A gentleman in Washington satirically suggests 
that the New Haven man had a friendly desire to disen- 
tangle my name from all connection with the Louisiana 
investigations. My own impression is that the Connecti- 
cut editor was in earnest, and that I must henceforth, in 
a minor degree, take a funeral place alongside Alexander 
H. Stephens, Charles O'Connor, and Muktar Pasha. The 
company is at least distinguished, and that is some con- 
solation for a lively corpse. 



Randall was not a good elocutionist. He had an 
immense fund of ready information on a great variety 
of subjects. He could tell anecdotes of interest about a 
great number of prominent men and women whom he 
had met in his career, but he never in reading his own 
compositions did justice to them. A close personal 
friend, Major Ganahl, once said to him after he had 
read Maryland! My Maryland! in a way to hurt the 
Major's artistic feelings: "Now, look here, Randall, 
that may be your child and not mine, but I can't stand 
having it murdered in my hearing." Dr. Basil L. 
Gildersleeve, who heard both Randall and Poe read 
their poems, has said that neither could read his own 
verse with the best expression. 



32 JAMES RYDER RANDALL 

Mr. J. C. Derby thus tells of his first meeting with 
Mr. Randall : 

During a temporary sojourn in Augusta, Georgia, in 
1870-71, while representing the house of D. Appleton & 
Co., I was conversing one day with one of my friends, 
a well-known cotton factor of that city, and observing 
a gentleman haranguing bystanders on one of the ample 
sidewalks, I said to my friend: "That must be one of 
the 'carpet-bag' politicians who have come from the 
North to 'reconstruct* you 'rebels'!" At that time the 
"carpet-bag government" was in full sway, "reconstruc- 
tion" not having become an assured fact. My friend 
laughed heartily, as did I when he said : "Why, that is 
James R. Randall, the author of My Maryland, which 
did such good Confederate service; he was a rebel, but 
he needs no reconstruction." I was soon after intro- 
duced to the poet-journalist, and from that time have en- 
joyed the friendship of one of the most brilliant writers 
of the South. 

Oliver Wendell Holmes wrote to President Gilman 
when prevented from attending the dedication of Sid- 
ney Lanier's bust at Johns Hopkins University that he 
was "the more anxious to come because Baltimore had 
produced the three best things of their kind : The 
Raven, The Star-Spangled Banner and My Mary- 
land!" With regard to Dr. Holmes and Maryland! 
My Maryland! in particular, Mr. Douglas Stader, the 
noted English litterateur, in requesting the privilege 
of publishing selections of Randall's poems, wrote : 

It may gratify you to hear that Dr. Holmes told me 
in Boston that he thought your great poem the greatest 
of all poems produced by the War. 



INTRODUCTION 33 

As one of the Holmes letters concerning Randall's 
famous poem was preserved among the latter's papers, 
the editor publishes it the more gladly, as in the fierce- 
ness of civil conflict, Holmes, in adding an original 
stanza to the Star-Spangled Banner, had included Ran- 
dall among the "traitors" who dared against liberty to 
"defile the flag of her stars and the page of her story." 
The letter, dated Boston, January 26, 1886, and ad- 
dressed to Charles Strahan, Esq., is as follows : 

My Dear Sir, I always felt rather than thought there 
was a genuine ring and a lifelike spirit in that lyric, 
"Maryland, My Maryland," and only regretted that I 
could not write a "Massachusetts, My Massachusetts" that 
would be at once as musical and as effective on what 
was for me the right side of the armed controversy. 
Believe me 

Very truly yours, 

O. W. Holmes. 

Although Randall was many times urgently invited 
to visit and live in the North, and on one occasion to 
deliver lectures on "The Poetry of the War," he could 
never bring himself to leave his native section. He 
believed that the South needed every one of her sons. 
He held that, "If Robert E. Lee, the greatest of Ameri- 
can warriors, could refuse riches and ease in the North 
barely to maintain a living at Washington College ; and 
if Matthew F. Maury, the leading American scientist, 
could refuse wealth and the highest honors of the Old 
World to stand by the side of Lee at the Virginia Mili- 
tary Institute, then he, as the least of American poets, 
could afford to follow their example." But if Lee took 



34 JAMES RYDER RANDALL 

the blame of defeat on himself or if Maury disclaimed 
his renown in science, the voice of history must pro- 
nounce the final verdict. So, in the world of letters, 
Randall will certainly not be allowed to record himself 
as the least of our lyricists, but will be given a place 
among our sweeter poets of peace and that of laureate 
in the War between the Sections. , 

Matthew Page Andrews. 
Baltimore, January 15, 1910. 



I. |£arlt*t: gatms 






JjWtSjjWv W — Ww^ WW's VujtV. 
\ J , 



MARY, MY HEART 



Facsimile of the bit of paper on which Randall, at sixteen, wrote the poem. 

The verses were inspired by a passion that was none the less true 

and real for being the earliest love of the youthful lyricist. 



games §lgdjev ^anxlall 



MARY, MY HEART 

MARY, my heart — because my heart is thine! 
Mary, my love — because my love's not mine ! 
Mary, my hope — because hope with thee grew ! 
Mary, my soul — because my soul is true ! 
Mary, my world — Ah ! tell me thou wilt be 
Heart, Love, Hope, Soul, and Universe to me ! 



TO MARY 

THERE'S something so supremely strange, 
That o'er my spirit's widest range 
Its fragrant incense swiftly flings — 
Depicting love — without the wings ; 
There's something in this heaving breast, 
Which I have ling'ring, long confessed, 
Which bids me now with trembling awe 
Turn from deep search of ancient lore, 
To Beauty's shrine — to Mercy's seat — 
With votive prayers the goddess greet ; 
With burning vows of boundless love, 
Perchance her heart I yet may move — 
Perchance that eye of dancing glee 
May answer mine — light but for me ! 
Oh ! how that fairy form could fire 
My young, my sighing, darling lyre ! 
If drear misfortune ere should chill, 
What hand could soothe with fonder thrill? 
Thy tones could raise my drooping mind 
With accents sweeter than the wind 
To string my harp with glowing zeal — 
To force man's rocky breast to feel 
The poet's strain — his quenchless flame— 
His high estate — his deathless name. 
38 



TO MARY 39 

Ah ! none this saving power can wield 

Save thou ; and wilt thou scornful yield 

My boyish dream to useless clay 

And darken childhood's bounding day? 

Away the thought ! forever fly ! 

My blasted heart would grieving die, 

If she on whom its every beam 

Falls in one endless, brilliant stream, 

Should close her soul 'gainst suppliant light, 

And every soaring fancy blight — 

It cannot be ! It cannot be ! 

I'll harbor no such thought of thee — 

But ever, ever shalt thou reign, 

Dear Empress of my heart and brain ! 



AN ACROSTIC 

Might I but spealc what yearns my soul to say 

A nd might I tell where my heart is given, 

R emembrance would my darling thus portray — 

Y oung, spotless — with a star-eyed face, like Heaven ! 

G lorious is she who thus is ever near me 

I n all my dreams, by day or in the night ; 

R epeat my vow, ye winged winds that hear me— 

V ainly shall others flit before my sight, 

I mpotent they, who flatter to endear me — 
N o siren tempts me from my Mollie bright ! 



40 



IMPROMPTU 

THE moon is up, and o'er yon trembling tide, 
About to woo the sea-god in his caves, 
She pours the brilliant splendors of a bride 
As to the nuptials trip the glittering waves : 
Upon the shore their murmuring music laves ; 
Upon each head gems forth a silver light, 

The gloomy island one kiss from her craves 
As spread her glories 'fore the dazzled sight — 
Hail! beauteous Dian, hail! thou peerless Queen of 
Night! 



4i 



TO THE OLD COLLEGE BELL 

DIED, at Georgetown College, aged 85, a well-beloved chime. 

Disease, a complication of old age and too 

many hard knocks. 

DRAG the old monitor down, 
Down with a sob and a knell ; 
Who throughout College and town 

Compassed his duties so well ? 
Weave, O my Muse ! an evergreen crown 
To honor the bonny old bell ! 

The morn, the noon, and the night, 
The night, the noon, and the morn, 

When Nature was brilliant and bright 
When Nature was naked and shorn, 

It pealed the departure of life-giving light 
Or told that Aurora was born. 

In winter and summer and fall, 
In fall and winter and spring, 

When zephyrs breathed languor to all, 
When tempests around it would sing; 

Before or beyond the gleam of old Sol 
This Memnon of duty would ring. 
42 



TO THE OLD COLLEGE BELL 43 

Fourscore snows and five, 

Rain and dust and sleet 
Have found the brave watcher alive 

And never deserting his beat ; 
In some of its music religion could thrive — 

When it swung out the "Angelus" sweet. 

No more shall its ominous tone 
Rouse us from slumber and bed ; 

No more shall it solemnly moan 
Its requiem toll for the dead ; 

Its last trump for dinner forever was blown 
When the soul of its melody fled. 

Drag the old monitor down, 

Down with a sob and a knell ; 
Who throughout College or town 

Compassed his duties so well ? 
Weave, O my Muse ! an evergreen crown 

To honor the bonny old bell ! 



FLOURINE 

LITTLE Flourine, with golden hair, 
And rose-red cheeks and features fair, 
You shall be the New Year's Queen, 
Little Flourine! 

Pretty Flourine, with the bright blue eyes, 
Whose tints are caught from the azure skies ; 
Airy, fairy, with heavenly mien, 
Pretty Flourine! 

Dainty Flourine, with your dazzling grace, 
And the beautiful wonders of your face ; 
May you have nothing but roses to glean, 
Dainty Flourine! 

Darling Flourine, may Time bring to you 
Days full of music and skies full of blue — 
Bliss that the saints and the angels have seen, 
Darling Flourine! 



GEHENNA 

"But where shall I find rest? Alas! 

Soon as the winter winds shall rave 
At midnight, through the long dark grass, 
Above mine unremembered grave." 

— Mangan 

WHEN locked in marble Death's embrace, 
When hushed and tideless sleeps my face, 
And vanquished every living grace, 
You'll love me then — 
Ah, only then ! 

The shrouded limbs, the sobbing bell, 

The wreath of yew and asphodel, 

Will wring the tears you cannot quell — 

Unhappy fate! 

Too late — too late. 



Too late, oh lost and worshiped one! 
Too late, when life is darkly done ! 
Too late — too late beneath the sun — 

And shall it be 

Eternity ? 

45 



46 JAMES RYDER RANDALL 

Do souls wild-wand'ring on the shore — 
The spectral land of "Nevermore" — 
Come back to those they loved of yore, 

Although in vain — 

Although in pain? 

Will any wave that swims the sea, 
Will any cloud that climbs the lee. 
Bring me to you, or you to me — 

Me to you 

Or you to me? 

Though I should stalk the globe amain, 
In the rude throbbings of the rain, 
I'd roam through Paradise again, 

In frenzied quest 

Of rest — of rest! 

And if you saw how blasted years 
Had hewn my cheek for caverned tears, 
Would you repel me from the spheres, 

Or clasp me fast, 

At last— at last? 






THE GRAND DUKE 

YOU gave me flowers in the crimson eves, 
Down by the garden gate, 
Where, on his throne of glad geranium leaves, 
The Grand Duke sat in state. 

You pitied him — the Grand Duke — and you sent 

A rare and budding bride, 
A lithe and fragrant Duchess, dew-besprent, 

Snow-bosomed and blue-eyed. 

Anon, the Grand Duke frowned and stood apart- 

The cold and bashful churl ! 
Until you bound them, darling, heart to heart, 

With one enamored curl. 

Ah me ! I have the plaintive bouquet here, 

With all its luster fled ; 
The lissome bride on her geranium bier, 

And the dear Grand Duke — dead. 

And many sad and somber thoughts arise 

Within me and without ; 
Specters of flowerets pictured on mine eyes, 

Robed in a shroud of doubt. 
47 



48 JAMES RYDER RANDALL 

Here, in the hot June midnight, grave and lone, 

By the dull candle's flare, 
I weave unutterable words, and moan 

Over a woman's hair. 

"Only a woman's hair !" and still I sob 
O'er memory with her pearls, 

Crushing my brows with anguish till they throb- 
Writhing my soul with curls. 

No — no ! I must not ponder things like these ; 

Be mine a breast of mail — 
Though but a Nautilus of frenzied seas, 

Swift — solitary — frail. 



The world will know you not, my song, for you 

Speak but to one, and say 
Something I dare not, to an eye of blue, 

When I am far away. 



THE COBRA CAPELLO 

The cobra, though exceedingly venomous, has an aspect of 
-entleness and docility. — Encyclopedia. 

BEAUTIFUL — yes ! for her basilisk eyes 
Gleam out when the features are luscious and 
mellow ; 
Beautiful — yes ! but adown the disguise, 
I detect just a tinge of the Cobra Capello. 

And I think Mother Eve looked exactly like this 
When she played such a prank on uxorious Adam ; 

I've a chronic dislike to a serpentine kiss, 
And never eat apples in any style, Madam. 

Beautiful — yes ! as she paddles her fan 

'Mid the bordered lagoons of her robe of white 
muslin ; 
And the tight little boot taps a quick rataplan, 

In a way most piratical, not to say puzzling. 

She prates of Tom Noddy, the handsome young goose, 
Of Don Trombonetti, divine on the flute ; 

And then, with a smile that's as arch as — the deuce, 
Quotes pert panegyrics on somebody's foot ! 
49 



50 JAMES RYDER RANDALL 

She'll sing you a hymn or tell you a fib 

(Just one of those cynical, feathery trifles)' 

And then, with a smirk that I think rather glib, 
Sigh after some monster that left with the Rifles. 

She vows I'm a miracle walking with men — 

(Ugh ! I swallow it all with a groan and a cough), 

For I know that most women are comical, when 
Their nightcaps are on and the visitors off! 

Ay, rattle ahead and prattle away, 

But, in sepulchered thought, I brood over another ; 
We parted, alas ! about nine months to-day, 

And we never must meet again — somehow or other. 

They tell me, poor bird, it is painful to see 

How you've changed, since we rode in the warm 
summer weather ; 

And oh, if I felt you were pining for me, 

I'd hew me a path that would bring us together. 

In your solitude still, do you sing the old songs? 

Oh, the "Long Weary Day!" shall it cease for us 
never ? 
But here, in the ruck of the sumptuous throngs, 

Your name in my lone heart is sacred forever ! 

Ah me! I am chill, for 'tis fearful to sit 

By the Cobra, when languished with tenderer mat- 
ters — 
Ha ! I see that my secret is guessed — every bit — 

For she's nibbling her lip, and the fan is in tatters. 



THE COBRA CAPELLO 51 

Beautiful — yes ! but I shall not succumb, 

Though wifeless from Beersheba even to Dan ; 

Heigho ! if my heart were but under her thumb, 
She'd crumple it, too, like the innocent fan ! 



JAMAIS 

EARLY love is swift and golden, 
Fond and foolish, too, perchance, 
But 'tis haloed by the olden, 

Golden moonlight of romance. 
Once its ripe aurelian bound me, 

Brimful with the birds of May — 
By the ruins that surround me, 
In shall bind no more — Jamais ! 

Once I felt the blue above thee, 

Peri-peopled by thine art; 
But 'twas death in life to love thee, 

Woman of the diamond heart ! 
Thou hast sown the sky with ashes, 

Made its constellations gray, 
While the wind-gust knells and gnashes 

Dirge-like to the night — "J ama i s 1" 

Though with purpose unbenighted, 

Though with intellect unshorn, 
Still my spirit, maimed and blighted, 

Bleeds beyond its battle morn. 
Herbless deserts, demon-haunted, 

Mark the fury of the fray, 
But that spirit, still undaunted, 

Bends to thee — Jamais ! Jamais ! 
52 



CLAY 

IMMORTAL Mind ! thy burning torch 
A deathless halo flings 
Around the Prophets crucified, 

And Sybaritic Kings ; 
We chant, to-day, a paean song 

To thy divinest flashes — 
To our imperishable one, 
The Mill Boy of the Slashes ! 

The fervid breast of Nature poured 

Its deluge to his sips, 
The bee-winged breezes charmed anew 

Hymettus to his lips, 
Till, like a cleaving peak, his thoughts 

To sunward regions ran, 
And God beheld beneath His throne 

A mountain-hearted man. 

His lispings fell like vesper dews 

Upon the alien leaves, 
Waking their inspirations through 

The palpitating sheaves ; 
Then from those clarion "wood-notes wild" 

Anointed dreams upsprung, 
Wedding the lightning of the brain 

To the thunder of the tongue ! 
53 



54 JAMES RYDER RANDALL 

We — we have seen him in the pride 

Of his colossal youth, 
We — we have heard his vestal vows 

To the Eternal Truth ; 
We — we have felt our spirits quail, 

Our very beings bow, 
When the supernal tempests shook 

That monumental brow ! 

And never yet, since morning stars 

Sang over Galilee, 
Have nations seen the peer of this 

Apostle of the free ! 
His was the avalanche of wrath 

That smites the despot down, 
And girds the brows of Justice witK 

An undisheveled crown. 

His trumpet-tones re-echoed like 

Evangels to the free, 
Where Chimborazo views a world 

Mosaic'd in the sea ; 
And his proud form shall stand erect 

In that triumphal car 
Which bears to the Valhalla gates 

Heroic Bolivar ! 

He spoke for Greece, and freedom flew 

Along her sacred rills, 
Waking the mighty souls that slept 

On Marathonian hills ; 



CLAY. 55 

While bold Bozzaris launched his flag 

Upon the gulf of night, 
And hurled a living thunderbolt 

Against the Ottomite ! 

The pillars of the Union quaked 

Before discordant shocks, 
When Heaven had sent its liberal snows 

Upon his honored locks ; 
Though all the angels beckoned him, 

His conquering arm uprose, 
And wrenched his country's flag away 

From its rebellious foes. 

Then with perennial laurel wreaths 

The matchless mind had wrought, 
His ladened bark went drifting on 

To find the "Kings of Thought" ; 
And though the stately vessel long 

Hath left its earthly strand, 
The helmsman's voice re-echoes back 

From out the Phantom Land. 

Live, Patriot, live ! while oceans chafe 

Their adamantine bars — 
While mailed Orion flames his plume 

'Mid bright-battalioned stars; 
Live, Patriot, live ! while glory thrills 

The heart-strings of the free, 
And Mississippi pours its grand 

Libations to the sea ! 



ODE TO PROFESSOR DIMITRY 

BEHOLD the man ! What matchless godlike grace 
Is blazoned round his great, expressive face ! 
The voice so full, so tremulously grand 
Speaks from his heart the woes of that brave land, 
Which fallen now, once reigned the titled Queen 
Of Mind, of Soul — all-seeing and all-seen ! 
Nurse of the Gods ! fair freedom's blest abode ! 
The poet's pride ! whence Homer's song has flowed, 
Rolling with ocean-flow from age to age — 
The first — the last — the best on History's page! 
Foremost in Art, in Science, and in Strife, 
In columned grandeur and in marbled life, 
Bend, bend before Hellenic tow'ring might 
Ye gifted vot'ries of the pure and bright ! 
All this and more thrills forth — how silent all! 
The burning echo riots round the hall ; 
In every breast responsive echoes breathe, 
The ravished senses twine a deathless wreath 
For those who fought for Freedom, scorning shame, 
Then yielding life, bequeathed themselves to fame ! 
Thus, not in vain, he courts the willing ear — 
Calls on the dead, and living forms appear ; 
Both gods and men in awful grandeur move — 
The "Blind old Bard"— the "Cloud-compelling Jove"! 

56 



ODE TO PROFESSOR DIMITRY S7 

He bids them tell of days when Greece was free, 

When Athens ruled triumphant o'er the sea, 

Athens the peerless — prescient — the blind — 

Athens the mutable — the undefined ! 

The fount of Eloquence ! whose spring inspired 

Her godlike son, and with his breath expired ; 

Which in one warning yet majestic cry 

Made Philip quail and cowards gladly die ! 

When Sparta stalked the Lioness of the shore 

With iron nerves — brute heart — what, nothing more? 

Ay ! ay ! a single boon kind Nature gave, 

Alone, to drag her from Oblivion's grave ; 

One hoary rock, the Keystone of the plain — 

A shivered altar but a hallowed fane ; 

For heroes' blood has stained the sacred stone, 

Dread august sacrifice! this — this alone 

Redeems the land with a renewing birth, 

Its faults forgotten in that faultless worth ! 

Shades of the brave ! your blood's not vainly shed — 

O stern baptism on a country's head ! 

Yet did that blood quench Persia's fiery pride 

And seal the spot where heroes fell — not died, 

Leaving their deeds an heirloom to the free — 

Unmoldering Record ! stern Thermopylae ! 

Now turn again — exulting to the skies 

A temple flits before the captive eyes, 

Unrivaled, chaste e'en as the new-born day, 

In perfect form it looms along the way — 

Unrivaled whole — unrivaled in decay ! 

Behold the Parthenon — the miracle — the fair ! 

Look once again — 'tis not — ay yes, 'tis there, 



58 JAMES RYDER RANDALL 

A pilfered wreck, a desecrated shrine, 
Though plundered oft, polluted, yet divine — 
Thy mind ascends from a dismembered whole, 
How glorious yet, thou Mecca of the Soul ! 



MARATHON 

STERN Marathon ! the mountains view thee yet ; 
Thy monarch plain with dew eternal's wet ! 
Each blade of grass that feathers from thy green 
Bears the bright impress of a hallowed mien. 
The bristling rocks, with climbing vines caressed, 
Shoot to the sky their cloud-defiant crest ; 
Cradle the King-bird in his eyrie home, 
When down he darts from heaven's starry dome; 
Stand the bold sentries of the holy vast ; 
Hurl from their thrones the thunder-throated blast; 
Sigh o'er the graves of valorous renown ; 
Then lordly smile while gazing grandly down. 
Tomb of the Brave ! thy echo sways the breeze, 
Before thy name all mimic grandeur flees, 
Before thy fame the world is thrilled with awe, 
Time has no tooth — Oblivion rends its maw ! 
Those martyr forms whom ages cannot quell 
Haunt the gray sod whereon they grappling fell. 
Call from the dust the Persian's fiery host, 
And lo ! what tumult stirs each gibbering ghost ! 
Thus when the lurid bolt is whirled along, 
These phantom heroes ring their battle song : 
When the hoarse thunder bellows from the sky, 
And dusky pinions storm the cliffs on high; , 

59 



6o JAMES RYDER RANDALL 

When the big rain comes rattling from the clouds 

Starting the dead in myriads from their shrouds — 

Amid the clangor of their dread refrain 

These grim old foes are mingled once again : 

The dark Platean in the tide of war, 

The comely Median in his battered car, 

The bright Athenian dealing death and fear, 

The Persian tottering on his shivered spear — 

The cloven helmet and the ghastly blow, 

The crimson scimitar, the stringless bow — 

They smite their shields, they form, prepare, advance : 

Sword splinters sword, lance crashes against lance — 

Away ! the golden lamp swings forth once more 

And all is mute upon that dreamy shore ! 

The living hills are marble for the dead, 

Their burial ground is where they fought and bled, 

Their epitaph is centered in a breath — 

"The dying freeman yields not quite to death I" 

Their deeds are chanted by the choral surge, 

That holiest harper of undying dirge! 

Each frolic wave that pillows on the plain 

Murmurs a praise surpassing mortal strain 

For those who perished there — but not in vain ! 



II. gojems of %ovt vlu& ^jenltmjent 



THE ORIEL WINDOW 

I PRAY in the country church, alas ! 
With missal and mind contrary ; 
And in spite of the hymn and the blessed Mass, 

In spite of my Ave Mary, 
My fancies are drowned in the faces around,— 
In spite of my Ave Mary ! 

The bluffs, the breeze, the bulwark trees 

Are grand and glad and holy yet ; 
The river as proudly seeks the seas 

As it did in the days of Joliet — 
Its wave-lips stirr'd with the babble of a bird, 

As a psalm and a psalter for Joliet. 

And then, uprolled from the rafter-mold, 
Come the dear ones, the departed — 

The fair and old 'neath the marigold, 
The bold and the broken-hearted — 

Till I shudder to think how we rabble on the brink 
Of the early broken-hearted. 

In mystic trance of my old Romance, 

I let all my sorrow and sin go; 
Forgetting the graves as they glance and dance 

Down — down through the ghastly window — 
With column and cross and banners of moss, 

Down — down through the Oriel Window. 
63 



64 7 AMES RYDER RANDALL 

A purple band from the Phantom Land, 
Come the idol-gods I cherished, 

And lo ! they stand by a throne of sand, 
With palsied brows and perished — 

And scoop from the shore of the sea no more 
The shells of the Past and Perished. 



But from those shells ring passion bells, 
Till my soul from its sacred duty 

Is ravished along with an earthly song, 
But a song of love and beauty ; 

Till aglow is the air with lustrous hair 
And dark-eyed songs of beauty. 



She kneels 'neath the spire by the dusty choir, 

With aspect lost and lornful; 
And my heart is smitten with spears of fire 

To see her looking so mournful — 
Ah, 'tis not meet that one so sweet 

Should ever be moody and mournful. 



She tells, I wist, the beads on her wrist, 

With a gentle, lyrical motion ; 
And she seems in a mist when the Eucharist 

Is soared for the people's devotion ; 
While a glittering crown for the head bowed down 

Is the meed of her dear devotion. 



THE ORIEL WINDOW 65 

Have you come in the guise of Paradise 

Our heart-troth to dissever ? 
In tears for the lonesome, bitter years, 

Would you woo me back forever ? 
Oh, speak, love, speak what your sad eyes seek, 

And win me back forever ! 



Both overthrown, we both have known 
How the chains of mortality clank ill — 

But to-night, to-night a vow we'll plight, 
To make our wild hearts tranquil ; 

While the flambeaux shine over thine and mine 
Untroubled, untortured, and tranquil. 



The quick retreat of the pattering feet 

Shakes the bloom from my dream-mimosa, 

I rush to the nook in the choir to greet — 
The Mater Dolorosa ! 

Naught, naught was there but a sculptured prayer 
Of the Mater Dolorosa. 



No more in a trance of my old Romance 
Shall I let all my sorrow and sin go ; 

But I'll join the graves as they glance and dance 
Down — down through the ghastly window, 

With column and cross, and banners of moss 
Down — down through the Oriel Window ! 



THE DAMSEL OF MOBILE 

I MET thee in the summer time, 
The summer of my youth — 
In days of my melodious prime 

And thine unsullied truth. 
I met thee when the jasmine buds 

Their velvet locks reveal ; 
Till I loved thee, till I loved thee, 
Darling Damsel of Mobile ! 

O shining tresses of the sun ! 

O eyes of ocean blue ! 
O dainty feet to nimbly run 

Upon the glittering dew ! 
The cypress breathes its gloomy buds 

On all I felt and feel- 
Still I love thee ! Still I love thee ! 

Darling Damsel of Mobile ! 

And now the summer time no more, 

The vikings of the rain 
Thunder their turf-steeds on the shore 

And prowl the jasmine plain ; 
The night shade blackens on my brow, 

The lightnings gash like steel — 
But a summer heart still throbs for thee, 

Darling Damsel of Mobile ! 
66 



w 



HA! HA! 

HEN summer suns are glancing 
On the merry damsels dancing 
'Neath the pendulous aroma of the beauty-blushing 
vine; 

When summer birds are cooing, 
In a pantomimic wooing, 
'Mid the azure-dimpled ether, which the poet calls 
divine : 

I win a frolic girl, 
From the rustle and the whirl, 
And I say she is a seraph and I swear she is a pearl— 
Ha! Ha! 
Ha! Ha! 
Who is gentler, who is fairer, ha ! ha ! who is sweeter ; 
Who is brighter, ha ! ha ! who is wittier and neater, 
Than the queen of my spirit — its glorified defeater — 
Ha! Ha! Ha! Malgherita! Malgherita! 

Ha! gaily we are flying, 

With laughter, love, and sighing, 

O'er the valley of Berilla, in its livery of green ! 
Ha ! madly we are dashing 
By the torrent thunder-flashing, 

And beyond the echo-flutter of the flute and violin : 

67 



68 JAMES RYDER RANDALL 

Little fairy, little fay, 
From the torrent keep away, 
Or thy roses and thy ribbons will be waltzing in the 
spray, 

Ha! Ha! 

Ha! Ha! 

Who is gentler, who is fairer — ha ! ha ! who is sweeter ; 

Who is brighter, ha ! ha ! who is wittier and neater, 

Than the queen of my spirit — its glorified defeater — 

Ha! Ha! Ha! Malgherita! Malgherita! 



In the twinkle of a minute, 

She wildly pours within it 
The glory of her tresses like a vivid golden veil ; 

In a second of derision, 

She forgetteth her precision, 
And is captured by the current as it dashes to the dale : 

I shoot beneath the flood 

All the lightning of my blood — 

I reach her and I save her and I bear her to the wood. 

Ha! Ha! 

Ha! Ha! 

Who is gentler, who is fairer — ha ! ha ! who is sweeter ; 

Who is brighter, ha ! ha ! who is wittier and neater, 

Than the queen of my spirit — its glorified defeater — 

Ha! Ha! Ha! Malgherita! Malgherita! 



You may fancy that the fountain, 
Baffled billow of the mountain, 



HA! HA! 69 

Is singing you this secret as it crashes grandly down : 
"What beatitude completer, 
He is wed to Malgherita, 
And they emulate the angels 'neath the summer's burn- 
ing crown !" 

We are wed ! we are wed ! 
As Khuleborn hath said, 
And we envy not the annals of the living or the dead. 
Ha! Ha! 
Ha! Ha! 
Who is gentler, who is fairer — ha ! ha ! who is sweeter ; 
Who is brighter, ha ! ha ! who is wittier and neater, 
Than the queen of my spirit — its glorified def eater — 
Ha! Ha! Ha! Malgherita! Malgherita! 



MA BELLE CREOLE 



c 



OULD tongue define 
In warbling line 
The music of this heart of mine, 
'Twould sing, to-day, 
A roundelay 
For thee, ma belle Creole Altheel 

But words are weak, 

When words would speak 
The ripeness of thy satin cheek, 

Or pearl that tips 

With dewy sips 
The arches of those blushing lips. 

The floods of lace 

That flirt and race 
In eddying ripples round thy face, 

Have framed, I ween, 

In magic mien, 
The daintiest image ever seen. 

Ah, sweet Althee! 
Around thee play 
The plumed and crystal tribes of May; 
70 



'MA BELLE CREOLE 

And in those eyes 
Float, flash, and rise 
Gay atmosphere of orient guise. 

The eyes — the eyes! 

The planet eyes 
Fresh from their dreams of Paradise ! 

My spirit sees, 

But never flees 
Their sorcery of sorceries. 

Truth, Grace, and Love 

From worlds above — 
Hints of the Pure and Holy Dove — 

Divinely bright, 

These gems of sight 
Are throned upon their globes of light. 

Thus heaven-beguiled, 

Beloved child, 
Have all the cherubs on thee smiled ; 

Let joys depart, 

Still, Sweet, thou art 
Voiced in the Virgin's sacred heart. 

Madonna! fold 

Her heart of gold 
In thy dear arms, when it is cold; 

Madonna! sing 

This bird of spring 
To sleep beneath thy velvet wing ! 



71 






PALMISTRY 

YOU gave me a geranium leaf — 
A little thing, but full of meaning; 
When inclination's half belief, 

The token made it worth the gleaning. 
Last night your hand was clasped in mine, 

Twas but the pressure of a minute, 
And yet, by some mysterious sign, 
A red rose blushed to birth within it ! 

Oh ! rather pluck for me, fair child, 

A branch of cypress or of willow ; 
My days are bleak, my thoughts are wild, 

I am but sea-weed on the billow. 
For me nor love, nor home, nor wife 

Can ever be a curse or blessing — 
The envious riddle of my life 

Would puzzle half your days in guessing. 

A week — a month — perchance a year, 

You might remember how you met me, 
And then, with neither smile nor tear, 

'Twill be so easy to forget me. 
With you the world is frolic May, 

With me, 'tis many a month of weeping- 
And you'll be dancing, Elsie Gay, 

When I am in the valley sleeping. 
72 



TO THE QUEEN OF THE WAX DOLLS 

5 r T , WAS in the old church yard I told you all, 

1 Beneath the Norway pine; 
There, by your mother's grave, I thought to call 

That poor lost mother mine. 

I saw you bend above an orphan child 

To kiss its winsome face ; 
This woman, quoth I, is all undefined, 

A miracle of grace. 

The world could never guess your riddle quite, 

Nor shake your soft repose ; 
The same meek orbs that shone upon the night, 

Were stars when morning rose. 

hypocrite ! your cool, Antarctic sighs 
Make memory an eclipse ; 

1 feel the serpent from those poisoned eyes 
Browsing upon my lips. 

You changed. You stumbled from the better path ; 

You robed your vows on biers ; 
And now my lexicon of love and wrath 

Is syllabled with tears. 
73 



74 'JAMES RYDER RANDALL 

You changed ! Your eyes are purple-lidded beads, 

Your hair a coil of flax, 
And the cold splendor of your shape recedes 

Into a mold of wax ! 

wormwood ! that a thing of wax and wire 
Could make me love it so ; 

I, with a Hecla-heart and nerve of fire, 
Gasping amid that snow. 

And now, repenting, you would be my wife, 

Would pawn your troth to me — 
Poor Doll ! beyond the icebergs of your life 

There throbs no open sea ! 

1 sought it once, and lo ! my former self 
Is shipwrecked in the quest. 

See the impassioned Franklin, with his pelf, 
Dead on your gelid breast. 

You scream — 'tis but a delicate doll's cry — 

A trick, as all perceive it ; 
They say you're stuffed with sawdust — though a lie, 

A skeptic might believe it ! 



STONE APPLES 

J JL if ID the shimmer of lamps and the redowa's dash, 
iVl Where the trumpet the thick-tongued song 
salutes — 
'Mid the flutter of gauze and the diamond's flash, 
'Mid the masquerade of flutes ! 

The boreal wind outside was keen, 

And the heavens had frosty eyes that night; 

Within was the realm of a tropic queen, 
Auroral with delight. 

Amiddle the foam of the frescoed ships 
On the pictured walls were the genii grim ; 

And the languid lotus, with chaliced lips, 
Was nectared to the brim. 

Here bevies of blondes with hyacinth hair, 
Flirt their silver arms 'mid the fervid dance ; 

And the dusk-eyed brunette wreathes her snare 
Through the sensuous advance. 

The vivid, voluptuous waltz is done, 
But the beaux are busy as they can be ; 

The buzzing butterflies round the sun 
Of a dazzling coterie. 

75 



76 JAMES RYDER RANDALL 

But I, in the wavering whirl of mirth 
Cast gloom and glamor far and wide; 

To me 'twas the emptiness of earth — 
The feast of the Barmecide. 



And there in a niche by the colonnade, 
Alone with the crisp and biting breeze, 

I counted the curves by the river made, 
And the grenadier-like trees. 

And I vow that the cold and dark to me 
Were better than melody, wit, and wine ; 

For I saw, what never on earth should be, 
Under the chill moonshine, — 

I saw by the sinuous river side 

A willowy cottage, neat and white, 
Where the bayou ripples prank and glide 

To the clover aleft and right. 

And a damsel, shaming the damsels here, 

With naught of their satin and silk and pearls, 

She — in a modest, maidenly sphere, 
They — like the geisha girls ! 

Oh, how I worshiped you then and there, 
The Mother of God alone can tell— 

With the bandeau dimming your starry hair, 
And your hand in mine, Estelle ! 



STONE APPLES 77 

Lo ! the boreal wind blew warm and soft, 
And the heavens had gentle eyes for all — 

I looked, with a gallant smile, aloft, 
And my spirit had no gall. 

My steps were turned to the ball again, 

With an arching front and a springy tread — 

"Oh, she is an angel to this train ; 
She is better than any," I said. 

And better is she, sweet child, away 

In that willowy cottage, neat and white ; 

For she is the darlingest bird of day, 
But these are the birds of night. 

The dear God nestles her eyes in sleep, 
And her visions are beautiful and serene ; 

The dawn has nothing for her to weep, 
With a flushed, disheveled mien. 

And I swear, as I murmured things like these, 

And even the revelry seemed but good, 
I saw, 'mid its giddiest ecstasies, 

My Violet of the Wood. 

Not in the garb of the olden days, 

But tricked with a tinselry of toys — 
And she frowned as she met my eager gaze, 

And she smiled o'er the foppish joys. 



78 JAMES RYDER RANDALL 

And she, high and haughtily, brushed me by, 
To harvest the spoils of her fevered bliss — 

To drink in the honeyed laugh and lie, 
The honeyed serpent's hiss. 

Yes ! the boreal wind cut keen and bleak, 

And the heavens had frosty eyes once more; 

For the apples I plucked from the Venus-cheek 
Were petrified to the core ! 

And I sighed to my heart : "My love is rash, 
Since these are the false and blasting fruits ; 

I thrust it back 'mid the diamond's flash, 
'Mid the masquerade of flutes !" 



ANIMA 

YOU came to me in feeble health, the hectic on your 
cheek, 

Revealed to my adoring sight a body frail and weak; 

The lissome form, the glamored eyes, the spirit un- 
dented — 

These, and a glimpse of early death, I saw, beloved 
child! 

And if my guilty heart could dare to make your heart 
its goal — 

I did not love you for your face — I loved you for your 
soul! 



You came to me a waif of God, unsullied by deceit ; 
I felt it sacrilege to kiss the shadows of your feet ; 
And when your thoughts were magnified beyond the 

dull terrene, 
I dreamt you sat within the Heaven beside the Naza- 

rene: 
And if my fierce emotions seared your being like a 

scroll — 
I did not love you for your face — I loved you for your 

soul! 

79 



80 JAMES RYDER RANDALL 

You came to me like manna-dews — like an embodied 
prayer ; 

Till your imploring accents turned the torrent of 
despair. 

You made me feel the blight of Sin, the majesty of 
Love, 

And when I clutched an earthly crown, you but glanced 
above. 

Oh, gladly for you would these hands demand the beg- 
gar's dole — 

I did not love you for your face — I loved you for your 
soul! 

You left me, darling child, before the Promised Land 

was won, 
And it was hard for me to look upon the living sun. 
'Twas no ignoble whim that hoped to make you mine 

alway ; 
My idol was no frenzy of the perishable clay. 
And if I kneel to you no more, save by the churchyard 

knoll, 
I have not loved you for your face — I've loved you for 

your soul ! 



EIDOLON 

AH, sweet-eyed Christ ! Thy image smiles 
In its Cathedral cell, 
Shrined in the heaven-enamored arms 

Of her who never fell ; 
And if my phantom eyes implore 

A more benignant beam, 
Tis a nepenthe I would crave 
For a memorial dream ! 

Dear Leonie ! here didst thou kneel 

That musky summer noon, 
As the zephyrs kissed in ecstasy 

The dimpled cheeks of June — 
As the sunlight drifted o'er thy brow 

A golden wave of grace, 
Bright blending with the miracles 

Of that angelic face. 

Adorably Madonna-like, 

By this communion rail, 
Thy raptured face, though rich with youtK, 

Was spirit-lit and pale ; 
And oh those opulent blue eyes, 

Those Meccas of despair — 
They, they were glorious Eden-isles 

Lost in a lake of prayer ! 
81 



8a JAMES RYDER RANDALL 

Saint Leonie ! I saw thee flit 

Gazelle-like to the street, 
And pure, melodious angels led 

Thy dainty, tinkling feet ; 
My rebel thoughts were petrel-winged, 

Attendant upon thee, 
Chasing thy loved and lissome shape 

As Arabs of the sea. 

Long did I love thee, belle Creole, 

As Gebirs love the sun, 
And in the temple of my soul 

Thou wast the eidolon ; 
Long did I love thee, belle Creole, 

Where corsair billows rise, 
And where the silver planets soar 

In unfamiliar skies ! 

Dark Corcovado ! did I not, 

With heart and soul aflame, 
Carve on thy broad, monarchal brow 

Her wildly worshiped name — 
Watching the homeward ships scud by 

Before the nimble breeze, 
Till memory with them wept away 

Beyond the tropic seas ! 

Years, years had died, and once again 
I saw the spires of home; 

Then, armed with an undying hope, 
I stood beneath this dome. 



EIDOLON 83 

But not within the pillared aisle, 

Nor by the sacred sign, 
Could my bewildered eyes behold 

The loveliness of thine. 

The sad November days had come, 

And eagerly I fled 
To find thee where the maidens deck 

The kingdoms of the dead ; 
I found thee — yes, I found thee, love, 

Beneath the willow tree — 
With marble cross and immortelle 

And one word — "Leonie !" 



ALEXANDRINE 

J'-pWAS the morning of Palm Sunday, in Village 

1 Adair, 

And the shy little chapel seemed jubilant there ; 
'Twas the morn of Palm Sunday, sad Sunday, I ween, 
That I met thee and loved thee, Alexandrine, 
Alexandrine ! 

I stood by the pew that was nearest to thine, 
While gentle St. Agnes, just over the shrine, 
Yearned tenderly to thee, as if she had seen 
Thy face up in Heaven, Alexandrine, 
Alexandrine ! 

I remember thy bodice, so snowy and blest, 
With a violet guarding its virginal nest; 
Thy sensitive forehead, thy contour serene, 
And a ripple of ringlets, Alexandrine, 
Alexandrine ! 

We met in the aisle — how I think of it now I— 
And meekly I tendered my sanctified bough. 
'Twas fondled, thy darling, deft fingers between— 
r Ah! the poor bough is withered, Alexandrine, 
Alexandrine ! 
84 



ALEXANDRINE 85 

And withered am I by a pitiless doom, 
Like a blast from the lungs of the demon simoom ; 
In the magical spell of a haunted ravine, 
Dost thou hear when I call thee, Alexandrine? 
Alexandrine ! 

On my cheek there is health, all my mind is aglow, 
But my soul is the saddest Sahara I know ; 
For thought hath not compassed, and eye hath not seen 
The kingdom I'm banished from, Alexandrine, 
Alexandrine ! 

By the way 01 the cross gleams thy radiant crown ; 
By the way of the world all my dreams have gone 

down: 
For thee peace and mercy ; for me daggers keen, 
And war with the wehr-wolf, Alexandrine, 
Alexandrine ! 

Thy sorrows were many, thy happy days few ; 

Thy tears bowed thee down like a rose crushed with 

dew; 
But those tears were too precious for mortal to glean, 
And a bride of the sky art thou, Alexandrine, 
Alexandrine ! 

In a dim convent cell of a land far away, 
Thy crucifix guides thee by night and by day ; 
And the white wings of seraphim flutter between 
My eyes and thy holiness, Alexandrine, 
Alexandrine ! 



86 JAMES RYDER RANDALL 

In thy saintliest prayer I would ask to remain, 
Though for me there be no resurrection again. 
The stars in their courses have mocked me, my queen, 
But I bless thee forever, Alexandrine, 
Alexandrine ! 



SPEAKING EYES 

THERE are some faces, rarely met, 
That weave a weird and winsome spell, 
Just as the songs we ne'er forget 

Of Kubla Khan and Christabel ; 
And these — so strange and fine — eclipse 

The silken swarm of rosebud dyes ; 
Though silence loiters on the lips, 
Sad poems warble with the eyes. 

And such a face, sweet child, is thine, 

Thine in the blossom of thy days — 
Ah ! woe is me ! that love of mine 

Should nestle in that magic gaze ! 
We met but once, and 'mid my brain 

The flames of sorcery arise — 
Oh ! should we ever meet again, 

Speak to me, darling, with thine eyes ! 

Through many lands I sought to find 

Some idol nobler than the Past ; 
No more a pilgrim pale and blind, 

I've found thee, loveliest, at last ! 
At last, I scan thy warm, white brow, 

At last, the Mecca planets rise — 
The wizard charm is on me now — 

Speak to me, darling, with thine eyes! 
87 



88 7AM ES RYDER RANDALL 

And with thine eyes, beloved, speak 

The subtle thought that keeps me strong, 
The sacred hope that fires my cheek 

In combat with the base and wrong. 
Better the everlasting night 

Than glittering with the world's disguise, 
But while the Heaven is in their light, 

Speak to me, darling, with thine eyes ! 

My days are dark, and still I think 

To claim thee in this globe of ours — 
Brimming the swart Vesuvian brink, 

Volcanic brows are fringed with flowers ; 
Together, by eternal meads 

That broaden up to healthier skies, 
My heart shall answer with its deeds 

What thou art speaking with thine eyes ! 



MY BONNY KATE 

THE sultry sun with angry eye, 
Gleams from the lurid summer sky, 
Through all the veins of red July, 

My bonny Kate ! 
So, very sad and very lone, 
I sit beside the window stone 
Musing on months forever flown, 
My bonny Kate ! 

This very day, one year ago, 

I roamed where Charleston fronts the foe, 

And loved, but dared not tell you so, 

It was my fate ! 
But soon I sought your eager eyes 
And answered all their glad surprise 
With love that falters not nor dies, 

My bonny Kate ! 

You must remember times so bright 

When every pulse thrilled through with light, 

Watching the sweet moon's silver flight, 

My bonny Kate ! 
That evening in the country town, 
The morning ride, up hill and down, 
The spring, where Eros won his crown, 

My bonny Kate ! 
89 



90 JAMES RYDER RANDALL 

We parted, 'twas the first sharp pain, 

We met and parted once again — 

It seemed as though our love were vain, 

So long to wait ! 
I strove to bring the world to bay, 
From early dawn to twilight gray. 
The promised land loomed far away, 

My bonny Kate ! 

Thus garnered, in that sacred past, 
My love has grown superb and vast, 
Each day sublimer than the last, 

My bonny Kate ! 
My heart is full and yet I know, 
To-morrow it will overflow, 
Forever yours, for weal or woe, 

My bonny Kate ! 

Then, darling, think what pangs assail 
Your lover's triple vest of mail, 
Dreaming that even you might fail 

Your last year's mate. 
Another sits where you have been, 
With you another walks the green 
And tender words have passed between, 

My bonny Kate ! 

A few short weeks, and I may be 
Dashing along the hostile sea, 
Winning the gold that ransoms thee, 
My bonny Kate ! 



MY BONNY KATE 91 

To God I yield the doubt — to you 
I give my solemn troth anew, 
My love, my faithful and my true— 
My bonny Kate ! 



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MARYLAND! MY MARYLAND! 

THE despot's heel is on thy shore, 
Maryland ! 
His torch is at thy temple door, 

Maryland ! 
Avenge the patriotic gore 
That flecked the streets of Baltimore, 
And be the battle queen of yore, 

Maryland ! My Maryland ! 

Hark to an exiled son's appeal, 

Maryland ! 
My mother State ! to thee I kneel, 

Maryland ! 
For life and death, for woe and weal, 
Thy peerless chivalry reveal, 
And gird thy beauteous limbs with steel, 

Maryland ! My Maryland ! 

Thou wilt not cower in the dust, 

Maryland ! 
Thy beaming sword shall never rust, 

Maryland ! 
Remember Carroll's sacred trust, 
Remember Howard's warlike thrust, — 
And all thy slumberers with the just, 

Maryland ! My Maryland ! 
95 



96 JAMES RYDER RANDALL 

Come ! 'tis the red dawn of the day, 

Maryland ! 
Come with thy panoplied array, 

Maryland ! 
With Ringgold's spirit for the fray, 
With Watson's blood at Monterey, 
With fearless Lowe and dashing May, 

Maryland ! My Maryland ! 

Come ! for thy shield is bright and strong, 

Maryland ! 
Come ! for thy dalliance does thee wrong, 

Maryland ! 
Come to thine own heroic throng, 
Stalking with Liberty along, 
And chaunt thy dauntless slogan song, 

Maryland ! My Maryland ! 

Dear Mother ! burst the tyrant's chain, 

Maryland ! 
Virginia should not call in vain, 

Maryland ! 
She meets her sisters on the plain — 
"Sic semper!" 'tis the proud refrain 
That baffles minions back again, 

Maryland ! My Maryland ! 

I see the blush upon thy cheek, 

Maryland ! 
For thou wast ever bravely meek, 

Maryland! 



MARYLAND! MY MARYLAND! 97 

But lo ! there surges forth a shriek 
From hill to hill, from creek to creek — 
Potomac calls to Chesapeake, 

Maryland ! My Maryland ! 

Thou wilt not yield the Vandal toll, 

Maryland ! 
Thou wilt not crook to his control, 

Maryland ! 
Better the fire upon thee roll, 
Better the blade, the shot, the bowl, 
Than crucifixion of the soul, 

Maryland ! My Maryland ! 

I hear the distant thunder-hum, 

Maryland ! 
The Old Line's bugle, fife, and drum, 

Maryland ! 
She is not dead, nor deaf, nor dumb — 
Huzza! she spurns the Northern scum! 
She breathes ! she burns ! she'll come ! she'll come ! 

Maryland ! My Maryland ! 



PELHAM 

JUST as the Spring came laughing through the 
strife, 
With all its gorgeous cheer; 
In the bright April of historic life, 
Fell the great cannoneer. 

A wondrous lulling of a hero's breath, 

His bleeding country weeps; 
Hushed in the alabaster arms of Death, 

Our young Marcellus sleeps. 

Nobler and grander than the Child of Rome, 

Curbing his chariot steeds, 
The knightly scion of a Southern home 

Dazzled the land with deeds. 

Gentlest and bravest in the battle's brunt, 

The Champion of the Truth; 
He won his banner in the very front 

Of our immortal youth. 

A clang of sabers 'mid Virginian snow, 

The fiery pang of shells — 
And there's a wail of immemorial woe 

In Alabama dells. 

98 



PELHAM 99 

The pennon droops that led the sacred band 

Along the crimson field ; 
The meteor blade sinks from the nerveless hand 

Over the spotless shield. 

We gazed and gazed upon that beauteous face, 

While round the lips and eyes, 
Couched in their marble slumber, flashed the grace 

Of a divine surprise. 

O mother of a blessed soul on high ! 

Thy tears may soon be shed — 
Think of thy boy with princes of the sky, 

Among the Southern Dead. 

How must he smile on this dull world beneath', 

Favored with swift renown ; 
He with the martyr's amaranthine wreath 

Twining the victor's crown ! 



THERE'S LIFE IN THE OLD LAND YET 

BY blue Patapsco's billowy dash 
The tyrant's war shout comes, 
Along with the cymbal's fitful clash 

And the growl of his sullen drums ; 
We hear it — we heed it, with vengeful thrills, 

And we shall not forgive or forget — 
There's faith in the streams, there's hope in the hills, 
There's Life in the Old Land yet ! 

Minions ! we sleep, but we are not dead, 

We are crushed — we are scourged — we are 
scarred — 
We crouch — 'tis to welcome the triumph-tread 

Of the peerless Beauregard. 
Then woe to your vile, polluting horde 

When the Southern braves are met — 
There's faith in the victor's stainless sword— » 

There's Life in the Old Land yet ! 

Bigots ! ye quell not the valiant mind 

With the clank of an iron chain ; 
The Spirit of Freedom sings in the wind 

O'er Merryman, Thomas, and Kane ! 
ioo 



THERE'S LIFE IN THE OLD LAND YET 101 

And we — though we smite not — are not thralls, 

We are piling a gory debt ; 
While down by McHenry's dungeon walls 

There's Life in the Old Land yet ! 

Our women have hung their harps away, 

And they scowl on your brutal bands, 
While the nimble poniard dares the day 

In their dear, defiant hands ! 
They will strip their tresses to string our bows 

Ere the Northern sun is set — 
There's faith in their unrelenting woes, 

There's Life in the Old Land yet ! 

There's life, though it throbbeth in silent veins, 

'Tis vocal without noise — 
It gushed o'er Manassas' solemn plains 

From the blood of the Maryland boys! 
That blood shall cry aloud, and rise 

With an everlasting threat — 
By the death of the brave, by the God in the skies, 

There's Life in the Old Land yet! 



THE BATTLE CRY OF THE SOUTH 

Arm yourselves and be valiant men, and see that we be in 
readiness against the morning, that ye may fight with these 
nations that are assembled against us, to destroy us and our 
sanctuary. 

For it is better for us to die in battle than to behold the 
calamities of our people and our sanctuary. — Maccabees I. 

BROTHERS ! the thunder-cloud is black, 
And the wail of the South wings forth ; 
Will ye cringe to the hot tornado's rack, 

And the vampires of the North ? 
Strike ! ye can win a martyr's goal ; 

Strike ! with a ruthless hand — 
Strike ! with the vengeance of the soul 
For your bright, beleaguered land! 

To arms ! to arms ! for the South needs help, 

And a craven is he who flees — 
For ye have the sword of the Lion's Whelp * 
And the God of the Maccabees ! 

Arise ! though the stars have a murky glare, 
And the moon has a wrath-blurred crown — 

Brothers ! a blessing is ambushed there 
In the cliffs of the Father's frown ; 



♦The surname of the great Maccabees. 
102 



THE BATTLE CRY OF THE SOUTH 103 

Arise ! ye are worthy the wondrous light 

Which the Sun of Justice gives — 
In the caves and sepulchers of night 
Jehovah the Lord King lives ! 

To arms ! to arms ! for the South needs help, 

And a craven is he who flees — 
For ye have the sword of the Lion's Whelp, 
And the God of the Maccabees ! 



Think of the dead by the Tennessee 
In their frozen shrouds of gore — 
Think of the mothers who shall see 

Those darling eyes no more ! 
But better are they in a hero-grave 

Than the serfs of time and breath, 
For they are the children of the brave, 
And the cherubim of death! 

To arms ! to arms ! for the South needs help, 

And a craven is he who flees — 
For ye have the sword of the Lion's Whelp, 
And the God of the Maccabees ! 

Better the charnels of the West 

And a hecatomb of lives, 
Than the foul invader as a guest, 

'Mid your sisters and your wives— 
But a spirit lurketh in every maid, 

Though, brothers, ye should quail, 
To sharpen a Judith's lurid blade, 

And the livid spike of Jael! 



104 JAMES RYDER RANDALL 

To arms ! to arms ! for the South needs help, 
And a craven is he who flees — 

For ye have the sword of the Lion's Whelp, 
And the God of the Maccabees ! 

Brothers ! I see you tramping by, 

With the gladiator gaze, 
And your shout is the Macedonian cry 

Of old, heroic days ! 
March on ! with trumpet and with drum, 

With rifle, pike, and dart, 
And die — if even death must come — 
Upon your country's heart. 

To arms ! to arms ! for the South needs help, 

And a craven is he who flees — 
For ye have the sword of the Lion's Whelp, 
And the God of the Maccabees ! 



r AT FORT PILLOW 

YOU shudder as you think upon 
The carnage of the grim report, 
The desolation when we won 
The inner trenches of the fort. 

But there are deeds you may not knoWj 
That scourge the pulses into strife, 

Dark memories of deathless woe 
Pointing the bayonet and knife. 

The house is ashes where I dwelt 
Beyond the mighty inland sea, 

The tombstones shattered where I knelt 
By that old church upon the lee. 

The prowling fiends who came with fire 
Camped on the consecrated sod, 

And trampled in the dust and mire 
The holy tenement of God! 

The spot where darling mother sleeps, 
Beneath the glimpse of yon sad moon, 

Is crushed, with splintered marble heaps, 

To stall the horse of some dragoon. 

105 



106 JAMES RYDER RANDALL 

And when I ponder that black day, 
It makes my frantic spirit wince ; 

I marched — with Longstreet — far away, 
But have beheld the ravage since. 

The tears are hot upon my face, 

When thinking what bleak fate befell 

The only sister of our race — 
A thing too horrible to tell. 

They say that ere her senses fled, 
She, rescued, of her brothers cried, 

Then feebly bowed her stricken head, 
Too good to live thus — so she died. 

Two of those brothers heard no plea, 
With their proud hearts forever still — 

Guy, shrouded by the Tennessee, 
And Bertram at the Malvern Hill. 



But I have heard it everywhere, 
Vibrating like a mystic knell ; 

'Tis as perpetual as the air 
And solemn as a funeral bell. 

By scorched lagoon and murky swamp, 
My wrath was never in the lurch ; 

I've killed the picket in his camp, 
And many a pilot on his perch. 



AT FORT PILLOW. 107 

With steady rifle, sharpened brand, 

A week ago, upon my steed, 
With Forrest and his warrior band, 

I made the hell-hounds writhe and bleed. 



You should have seen our leader go 
Upon the battle's burning marge, 

Swooping, like falcon, on the foe, 
Heading the gray line's iron charge. 

All outcasts from our ruined marts, 
We heard th' undying serpent hiss, 

And, in the desert of our hearts, 
The fatal spell of Nemesis. 

The Southern yell rang loud and high, 
The moment that we thundered in, 

Smiting the demons hip and thigh, 
Cleaving them to the very chin. 

My right arm bared for fiercer play, 
The left one held the rein in slack ; 

In all the fury of the fray, 

I sought the white man, not the black. 

The dabbled clots of brain and gore 
Across the swirling sabers ran ; 

To me each brutal visage bore 
The front of one accursed man. 



108 JAMES RYDER RANDALL 

Throbbing along the frenzied vein, 
My blood seemed kindled into song- 

The death-dirge of the sacred slain, 
The slogan of immortal wrong. 

It glared athwart the dripping glaives- 
It blazed in each avenging eye — 

The thought of desecrated graves 
And one lone sister's desperate cry! 



JOHN W. MORTON 

TINGED with flame and sore beset, 
Where gunboat and rifle fire met ; 
Where cannon blazed from water and land 
Upon the Donelson Southern band, 
A gallant lad of nineteen years, 
A stranger to tremor and to fears, 
Stood by a battery piece and shot 
The first shell in that crater hot. 

His captain, Porter, smitten down 
Where all the volleyed thunders frown, 
Shouted, when borne in pain away : 
"John, don't give up that gun, I say !" 
"No ! not while a man is left," replied 
The lad, in the flush of martial pride ; 
And he kept his word to the utter end, 
While a man could live in that river bend. 

"No prison for me," grim Forrest said, 
And thousands followed where he led ; 
But other thousands remained because 
They bowed to Buckner's word and laws. 
Whelmed by the girdling Northern men, 
They marched to the captive's dismal den, 
And the lad who fired the first gun past 
Into that solitude sad and vast. 
109 



no JAMES RYDER RANDALL 

A few months more, and the daring boy 
Breathed the air that the free enjoy — 
A few months more, and he gaily went 
Where dauntless Forrest pitched his tent. 
Saluting the hero, he quickly gave 
To the South's own "bravest of the brave" 
A paper that said he was to be 
The Wizard's Chief of Artillery. 

A derisive smile swept over the face 
Of the stern commander from his place. 
"What !" he growled, "are you to wield 
Command of my guns in war's fierce field? 
Nonsense, boy, go grow a beard !" 
And this was what the stripling heard. 
But presently the Wizard's brow 
Grew calm. "I'll try you, anyhow," 
He said, and from that setting sun 
Morton and Forrest were as one. 



THE LONE SENTRY 

Previous to the first battle of Manassas, the troops under 
"Stonewall" Jackson had made the first of those forced 
marches which later made them world-famous. At night they 
fell to the ground, exhausted and faint. When the hour ar- 
rived for setting the watch for the night, the officer of the 
day went to the General's tent and said: 

"General, the men are all wearied, and there is not one but 
is asleep. Shall I wake them?" 

"No," said Jackson, "let them sleep, and I will watch the 
camp to-night." 

And all night long he rode around that lonely camp, the 
one lone sentinel for that brave but weary body of Virginia 
heroes. When morning broke the soldiers awoke fresh and 
ready for action, unconscious of the vigil kept over their 
slumbers. 

* HP WAS at the dying of the day, 

1 The darkness grew so still 
The drowsy pipe of evening birds 

Was hushed upon the hill. 
Athwart the shadows of the vale 

Slumbered the men of might, 
And one lone sentry paced his rounds 

To watch the camp that night. 

A grave and solemn man was he, 

With deep and somber brow ; 
The dreamful eyes seemed hoarding up 

Some unaccomplished vow. 
in 



112 JAMES RYDER RANDALL 

The wistful glance peered o'er the plain 

Beneath the starry light, 
And with the murmured name of God, 

He watched the camp that night. 

The future opened unto him 

Its grand and awful scroll— 
Manassas and the Valley march 

Came heaving o'er his soul ; 
Richmond and Sharpsburg thundered by, 

With that tremendous fight 
That gave him to the angel host 

Who watched the camp that night. 

We mourn for him who died for us 

With one resistless moan, 
While up the Valley of the Lord 

He marches to the Throne ! 
He kept the faith of men and saints 

Sublime and pure and bright; 
He sleeps — and all is well with him 

Who watched the camp that night. 



ON THE RAMPART 

ON Sumter's rampart, that sweet eve, 
I heard the vesper bugle play 
In chorus with the ocean's heave, 
All in the golden prime of May. 

On either side, the level lands 

Swam seaward gray and serpentine ; 

The billows burst in corsair bands 
Against their shield of rock and pine. 

Aloof, beyond the sullen bar 

Crouching, the black armada rides— 

Afront the vulture ships of war, 
Brooded the giant Ironsides. 

The fortress guns scowled from their lair 
Along the sentry's bristling beat ; 

While on the sultry wave, aglare, 

Back frowned the gaunt and baffled fleet. 

Above her, in the glittering day, 

The white-winged banner's battle stars - 
Crisping the bosom of the bay, 

Bold Moultrie stands with all her scars ; 
"3 



114 JAMES RYDER RANDALL 

Amid the island, in repose, 

The casual breeze at last grew still ; 

And, through the haze of twilight, rose 
The tower of Secessionville. 



The patient moon clomb up the sky 
Forever on the sun god's trail — 

The saddest, loveliest thing on high, 
And like CEnone's passion, pale. 

The signal fires wink through the dark, 
Aleft and right, as rays may reach 

Around the red and feverish arc 
Of muffled batteries on the beach. 

A hallowed radiance, calm and grave, 
Gilded the city's storied spires ; 

Where watch the beautiful and brave, 
Where sleep the Carolinian sires. 

On Sumter's rampart, that sweet night, 
Leaning beside the shattered wall, 

Thy gentle face, so fair and bright, 
Kept me, dear love, within thy thrall. 

I turned from wrecks of storm and strife 
To thee — within some distant home; 

I felt that all my fate and life 
Were thine, wherever I must roam. 



ON THE RAMPART 115 

A glory has come o'er my days 

In dreaming noblest dreams of thee ; 

Beyond the rampart, how my gaze 
Went proudly o'er the Southern sea ! 

Dear love ! though dreams may wither here, 
They are upgathered from the sod; 

And we shall see them reappear 
In the long summer time of God ! 



THE CAMEO BRACELET 

EVA sits on the ottoman there, 
Sits by a Psyche carved in stone, 
With just such a face and just such an air, 
As Esther upon her throne. 

She's sifting lint for the brave who bled, 
And I watch her fingers float and flow 

Over the linen, as thread by thread, 
It flakes to her lap like snow. 

A bracelet clinks on her delicate wrist, 
Wrought, as Cellini's were at Rome, 

Out of the tears of the amethyst 
And the wan Vesuvian foam. 

And full on the bauble-crest alway — 

A cameo image keen and fine — 
Glares thy impetuous knife, Corday, 

And the lava-locks are thine. 

I thought of the wehr-wolves on our trail, 

Their gaunt fangs sluiced with gouts of blood ; 

Till the Past, in a dead, mesmeric veil, 
Drooped with a wizard flood. 
116 



THE CAMEO BRACELET 117 

Till the surly blaze, through the iron bars, 
Shot to the hearth, with a pang and cry — 

And a lank howl plunged from the Champ de Mars 
To the Column of July. 

Till Corday sprang from the gem, I swear, 
And the dove-eyed damsel I knew had flown — 

For Eva was not on the ottoman there, 
By Psyche carved in stone. 

She grew like a Pythoness, flushed with fate, 

With the incantation in her gaze — 
A lip of scorn, an arm of hate, 

And a dirge of the Marseillaise ! 

Eva, the vision was not wild, 

When wreaked on the tyrants of the land — 
For you were transfigured to Nemesis, child, 

With the dagger in your hand ! 



PLACIDE BOSSIER 

AH, friend ! in the tender College time 
No evil deed could stain thee, 
And now 'mid the combat's iron chime, 

In purity they've slain thee. 
Sans peur et sans reproche to live, 

Sans peur the foe defying — 
Sans peur et sans reproche we give 
Thy epitaph when dying. 

When the Southern bullet sang the knell 

Of the ravaging invader, 
Then — then triumphantly he fell, 

Our spotless young Crusader; 
With the loud hurrah and the dauntless tramp 

Of the charging Creole yeomen, 
He fell where the Cherubim encamp, 

With his face to the flying foemen. 

The blood moon guides its torch of night 

Through the smoke envolumed valleys, 
And the hillocks tell where the reddest fight 

Shook the quick, convulsive rallies; 
In the foremost phalanx he shall rest 

His head in the dust declining, 
The rifle shielding the soldier breast — 

The cross on the saint-heart shining! 
118 



OUR CONFEDERATE DEAD 

UNKNOWN to me, brave boy, but still I wreathe 
For you the tenderest of wildwood flowers ; 
And o'er your tomb a virgin's prayer I breathe 
To greet the pure moon and the April showers. 

I only know, I only care to know, 

You died for me — for me and country bled ; 
A thousand springs and wild December snow 

Will weep for one of all the Southern Dead. 

The cause is sacred, when our maidens stand 
Linked with sad matrons and heroic sires, 

Above the relics of a vanquished land, 
And light the torch of sanctifying fires. 

Your bed of honor has a rosy cope, 
To shimmer back the tributary stars ; 

And every petal glistens with a hope, 

When Love has blossomed in the disk of Mars. 

Sleep ! On your couch of glory slumber comes 

Bosomed amid th' archangelic choir, 
Not with the grumble of impetuous drum, 

Deep'ning the chorus of embattled ire. 
119 



120 JAMES RYDER RANDALL 

Above you shall the oak and cedar fling 
Their giant plumage and protecting shade, 

For you the song-bird pause upon its wing 
And warble requiem ever undismayed. 

Farewell ! And, if your spirit wander near 
To kiss this plaint of unaspiring art — 

Translate it, even in the heavenly sphere, 
As the libretto of a maiden's heart. 



MEMORIAL DAY 

NOBLEST of martyrs in a glorious fight ! 
Ye died to save the cause of Truth and Right ; 
And though your banner beams no more on high, 
Not vainly did it wave or did ye die ! 

No blood for freedom shed is spent in vain; 

It is as fertile as the summer rain ; 

And the last tribute of heroic breath 

Is always conqueror over Wrong and Death. 

The grand procession of avenging years 
Has turned to triumph all our bitter tears ; 
And the cause lost, by battle's stern behest, 
Is won by Justice, and by Heaven blest. 

Dark grew the night above our sacred slain, 
Who sleep upon the mountain and the plain; 
But darker still the black and blinding pall 
That whelmed the living in its lurid thrall. 

But taught by heroes, who had yielded life, 
We fainted not, nor faltered in the strife ; 
With weapons bright, from peaceful Reason won, 
We cleaved the clouds and gained the golden sun. 
121 



122 JAMES RYDER RANDALL 

And so to-day the marble shaft may soar 
In memory of those who are no more ; 
The proudest boast of centuries shall be, 
That they who fell with Jackson rise with Lee ! 



CHARLES B. DREUX 

WEEP, Louisiana, weep thy gallant dead! 
Weave the green laurel o'er the undaunted head ! 
Fling thy bright banner o'er the heart which bled 
Defending thee ! 

Weep — weep, Imperial City, deep and wild ! 
Weep for thy martyred and heroic child, 
The young, the brave, the free, the undefiled — 
Ah ! weep for him ! 

Lo ! the wail surges from the embattled bands, 
By Yorktown's plains and Pensacola's sands, 
Re-echoing to the golden sugar lands, 
Adieu! adieu! 

The death of honor was the death he craved, 
To die where weapons clashed and pennons waved, 
To welcome freedom o'er the opening grave, 
And live for aye. 

He died while yet his chainless eye could roll, 
Flashing the conflagrations of his soul ! 
The rose and mirror of the bold Creole, 
He sleepeth well ! 
123 



124 JAMES RYDER RANDALL 

Lament, lone mother, for his early fate, 
But bear thy burden with a hope elate, 
For thou hast shrined thy jewel in the stake, 
A priceless boon! 

And thou, sad wife, thy sacred tears belong 
To the untarnished and immortal throng; 
For he shall fire the poet's breast and song 
In thrilling strains. 

And the fair virgins of our sunny clime 
Shall wed their music to the minstrel's rhyme, 
Making his fame melodious for all time — 
Forever bright ! 



ASHES 

THE Spring will come with its ebullient blood, 
With flush of roses and imperial eyes ; 
A vein of strength will throb along the flood — 
Banners of beauty toss the pillared wood 
When birds of music anthem to the skies. 

And man prowls forth to mar thy gentle ways, 
With sword and shot and sacrilegious hand ; 
Thy reign is fallen upon demon days, 
We peer at thee althrough a gory haze, 

Weeping and praying for our stricken land. 

O Land ! O Land of the benignant South ! 

The Great High Priest approaches to thy brow, 
Anointing it with ashes ; let thy mouth 
Rebel not, nor thy heart be filled with drouth — 

The hand will raise thee up that smites thee now ! 

"Ash Wednesday, 1865. 



125 



THE UNCONQUERED BANNER 

THE sad priest-singer, in his dread despair, 
When our war-trumpets ceased their charging 
blare, 
Wailed, in melodious numbers, o'er the South, 
Her righteous Cause crushed at the cannon-mouth. 
He bade us fold our banner and for aye, 
Because its night had come and not one ray 
Of hope remained to gild its glorious head, 
And that it typified the hopeless dead. 

The peerless poet of that desperate age 

Wrote an immortal lyric, but the rage 

Of the aggressive section is no more, 

And thus our Southern flag, from shore to shore, 

Emerges like an eagle from its sleep 

To woo the sun, and, in its heart to keep 

The never-dying principle of Right, 

Surviving every fierce, unequal fight. 

Men die, but principles can know no Heath"— i 
No last extinguishment of mortal breath. 
We fought for what our fathers held in trust; 
It did not fall forever in the dust. 

126 



THE UNCONQUERED BANNER 127 

Our foemen sought to make us worse than slaves, 
To envy all who sleep in hero-graves ; 
They failed at last to do the deed they meant — 
They failed in trying God to circumvent. 

And well for them they failed, for, in the end, 
Their fate and ours must ever interblend, 
If we have Caesar, so must Caesar be 
With them in fullest perpetuity. 
If they have empire and the sordid ban 
Of Shylock and the money-changing clan ; 
The South is blameless ; for she holds in fee 
The stainless swords of Washington and Lee. 

Now, let our Banner, symbol of the Right, 

Kiss every wind in its unconquered might; 

Let the glad spirit of the poet-priest 

Hover above this grand Reunion feast 

To watch our Banner, from the grave of strife 

Rise with the glory of a new-born life ; 

Twined with the ancient flag, o'er land and main, 

And wed to deathless liberty again. 



AT ARLINGTON 

THE broken column, reared in air 
To him who made our country great, 
Can almost cast its shadow where 
The victims of a grand despair, 

In long, long ranks of death await 
The last loud trump, the Judgment-Sun, 
Which comes for all, and, soon or late, 
Will come for those at Arlington. 

In that vast sepulcher repose 

The thousands reaped from every fray ; 
The Men in Blue who once uprose 
In battle-front to smite their foes — 

The Spartan Bands who wore the gray ; 
The combat o'er, the death-hug done, 

In summer blaze or winter snows, 
They keep the truce at Arlington. 

And almost lost in myriad graves, 

Of those who gained the unequal fight, 

Are mounds that hide Confederate braves, 

Who reck not how the north wind raves, 
In dazzling day or dimmest night, 

O'er those who lost and those who won ; 
Death holds no parley which was right — 

Jehovah judges Arlington. 
128 



AT ARLINGTON 129 

The dead had rest ; the Dove of Peace 
Brooded o'er both with equal wings ; 

To both had come that great surcease, 

The last omnipotent release 

From all the world's delirious stings; 

To bugle deaf and signal-gun, 

They slept, like heroes of old Greece, 

Beneath the glebe at Arlington. 

And in the Spring's benignant reign, 
The sweet May woke her harp of pines ; 

Teaching her choir a thrilling strain 

Of jubilee to land and main, 

She danced in emerald down the lines ; 

Denying largesse bright to none, 
She saw no difference in the signs 

That told who slept at Arlington. 

She gave her grasses and her showers 
To all alike who dreamed in dust; 

Her song-birds wove their dainty bowers 

Amid the jasmine buds and flowers, 
And piped with an impartial trust — 

Waifs of the air and liberal sun, 

Their guileless glees were kind and just 

To friend and foe at Arlington. 

And 'mid the generous Spring there came 

Some women of the land, who strove 
To make this funeral-field of fame 
Glad as the May-God's altar-flame, 



130 JAMES RYDER RANDALL 

With rosy wreaths of mutual love — 
Unmindful who had lost or won, 

They scorned the jargon of a name — 
No North, no South, at Arlington. 

Between their pious thought and God 
Stood files of men with brutal steel ; 

The garlands placed on "Rebel sod" 

Were trampled in the common clod, 
To die beneath the hireling heel. 

Facing this triumph of the Hun, 
Our Smoky Caesar gave no nod, 

To keep the peace at Arlington. 

Jehovah judged — abashing man — 
For in the vigils of the night, 

His mighty storm-avengers ran 

Together in one choral clan, 

Rebuking wrong, rewarding right; 

Plucking the wreaths from those who won, 
The tempest heaped them dewy-bright 

On Rebel graves at Arlington. 

And when the morn came young and fair, 
Brimful of blushes ripe and red, 

Knee-deep in sky-sent roses there, 

Nature began her earliest prayer 
Above triumphant Southern dead. 

So, in the dark and in the sun, 

Our cause survives the tyrant's tread, 

And sleeps to wake at Arlington. 



IV. ^tisctWxntous "gotxas 



w 



SILVER SPRING 

'HEN the Lord of Light revealed 
The flashing radiance of his shield, 
Glorifying wave and field ; 
When he felt he must expire, 
Then his orb with blazing ire 
Shot his dying shafts of fire ; 
When the palpitating breeze 
Smote the gitterns of the trees, 
Like the shout of distant seas ; 
When the jeweled birds that sing 
Wooed on rainbow-tinted wing, 
I beheld thy face of splendor blushing with the wild 
and tender, Silver Spring! 

Virgin! when the shadows roll 
To the ice-embattled pole, 
From thy sweet, pellucid soul- 
Each angelic host on high 
Sees in that cerulean eye 
Blossom-beauties of the sky, 
(Blessed Spirits! ye who dwell 
Far beyond the ether swell, 
How ye anthem, "It is well !") 
133 



134 JAMES RYDER RANDALL 

On thy bosom let me seem 
Kerneled in a Bagdad dream, 
Rocked to slumber by a seraph over thy celestial 
stream ! 

On a fairy, pensive pinion 
Gloat I o'er thy deep dominion, 
Shaming e'en the Augustinian ; 
Wonders rushing thicker — faster ! 
Here a porphyry pilaster, 
Here a temple alabaster ; 
And the sunshine as it falls 
Splinters on quintillion halls 
And a miracle of walls ! 
Now thy bannerets are beaming — 
Now with mystic music gleaming 
O'er a city — gem-girt city — in a gush of dervish 
dreaming ! 

Here, ah here, the Indian maiden, 
When with love and languor laden, 
Sought thee, as the cells of Aidenn ; 
With a world of gentle guesses, 
In thy flood her floating tresses 
Poured their cascade of caresses ! 
Here her hero from the rattle 
Of the crimson blows of battle, 
Slept beneath her soothing prattle- 
Slept — but, ere the sun's decline, 
Like the lightning-riven pine, 
And his heart's blood, Silver Billow, swept its throb- 
bings into thine. 



SILVER SPRING 135 

When the sad and solemn moon 
Muses o'er the lone lagoon, 
And laughs the melancholy loon ; 
When the crooning winter breeze, 
Hapless from the Hebrides, 
Chafes the dead cathedral trees 
'Mid the vultures' muffled wails, 
Stifled by the panther-hails, 
Shuddering up palmetto trails; 
When the globe is wrapt in sleep, 
When the gnomes their vigils keep 
By the mountain and the deep — 
I can fancy phantom things, 
On their thunder-tarnished wings, 
Soaring with a fallen grandeur over these enchanted 
springs ! 

Dusky plume and siroc frown, 
Lo ! the night comes trampling down 
O'er thy palaces and town ! 
Lo ! a legion like the stars, 
Speeding from their crystal cars, 
Leap beyond the sable bars ; 
How they glittered as they roll'd ! 
How thy streets are stormed with gold! 
Undine ! Undine ! thou are Princess of the Parables of 
Old! 



KEATS 
'Here lies one whose name was writ on water." 

BEYOND the wall that belts the town, 
Where grand Saint Peter's titan crown 
Looks apostolically down ; 

With shrunken form and shrouded lid, 
The Song Bird — not the Song — is hid 
Near Caius Cestius' pyramid. 

There purer from his Roman pyre, 
The star-eyed Skylark of the Choir 
Slumbers, a radiant Child of Fire ! 

Twin bards — twin death! no slander parts, 
With livid tongue and venomed darts, 
The Soul of Souls and "Heart of Hearts." 

The coheirs of porphyrogene, 
Their dreams are royal and serene 
Beneath the night's sweet sibyl queen. 

Methinks their sad song sadly calls 
From every breeze that swells and falls 
Along the Coliseum's halls. 
136 



KEATS 137 

And that sad song shall murmur there, 

Upon the pulses of the air, 

With incense-wings of warbled prayer. 

And it shall sigh and fondly flit 

When dome and tomb are bright moonlit, 

O'er him whose name was water-writ. 

Twas writ on water, but the wave 
That surges from a hallowed grave 
Is not old Ocean's liquid slave. 

Tis the tumultuous Sea of Song — 
The Scroll of the Anointed Throng 
To whom eternities belong ! 

Thy name, great Keats, had water-birth, 
And now, in its majestic worth, 
It heaves its billows over earth ! 



THE UNBOUGHT SEMINOLE 

"After the defection of many of the Seminole chiefs in 1857, 
Arpeik was approached by the United States Commissioners, 
and tendered money and lands if he would cease hostilities 
and consent to deportation. Though not less than one hundred 
and fourteen years old, blind and decrepit, his intellect sur- 
vived the wreck of the body and his soul retained its ancient 
heat. His reply was worthy of any age: 'Wagon loads of 
gold shall never buy me!' A few months afterward he died 
and was buried among the Thousand Islands in a remote 
corner of the land which gave him birth, which he had fought 
to possess and which he never relinquished utterly." 

AN old, old man, in thicker shades 
Than brood upon the brows of Night, 
Hath lit the ghastly Everglades 
With an imperishable light; 
A light more brilliant in its flame 
From the dusk soul from whence it came, 
Amid the war-cloud's clashing fame — 
It burns ! it blazes ! let it be 
A globe-mark for the bold and free 
To beacon on Eternity. 
Ay, let it flash its halo high — 
Flash like a meteor in the sky 
With lightning flame 
To crown a name 
That cannot, will not quickly die I 
138 



THE UN BOUGHT SEMINOLE 139 

No subtle tribute of the mine 

Could quell that hero-heart of thine ; 

Not the ripe wilderness of gold 

Through which Pactolian tides have roll'd; 

Not the star-gem that grandly flings 

Its flambeau by barbaric kings ; 

No traitor's breath, no hostile band, 

Not Power's all-pervading hand 

Could wrench thee from thy native land. 

The lone wolf hounded from his lair 

May find a shelter from despair — 

Man of the weary foot, for thee 

No refuge held the land or sea — 

Death, death alone could set thee free — 

And, more than free, since thus it came 

Girt with the glory-wings of fame. 

O wildwood Spartan of thy time ! 
O more than Roman in thy crime, 
Love for thine own beloved clime. 
Dear God ! what segment of the earth 
Can match the region of our birth ! 
Though ice-beleaguered, rill on rill, 
Though scorched to deserts, hill on hill — 
It is our native country still. 
Our native country, what a sound 
To make heart, brain, and blood rebound! 
Our native country! bannered far 
On eagle wings, with cross and star ; 
Diviner than the hymns of glee 
That flood Astarte-eyed Chaldee, 



140 JAMES RYDER RANDALL 

It frets the war flag on the deep, 
It makes the bale-fire on the steep, 
It stirs a thought that cannot sleep. 

It arsenals the fleetest arm 

With the keen weapons of alarm, 

And sends them shimmering forth amain 

To smite and smite and smite again. 

It boomed a grand, cathedral bell 

Along the crags to Bruce and Tell ; 

It rang like cymbals on the breeze 

To Henry and Demosthenes; 

It pealed, like trumpets in the fray 

That canonized Thermopylae ; 

It wailed o'er Warren, sad and shrill, 

In the hot crash of Bunker Hill ; 

It wept wild music o'er the dart 

That burst proud Osceola's heart, 

And still fares forth, a choral wave 

Upon the never-dying brave — 

Such is the heavenly gardened seed 

That flowers each immortal deed. 

Such, such the spirit of the past 
That nobly battles to the last, 
And such the sunbeam of thy soul, 
Grim Brutus of the Seminole ! 
And I — though pale-faced and thy foe, 
Can laud thy joy and feel thy woe ; 
Would that a Homer's magic lyre, 
His sibyl lip, his tongue of fire, 



THE UN BOUGHT SEMINOLE 141 

Were mine but one great moment — then, 
Statued with monumental men, 
Thy ghostly form, rapt in renown, 
Should stand with helmet, sword, and crown — 
And who would dare to drag it down ? 



From the throned summit of the Thousand Islands, 

Meek virgins of the sea, 
Along their diadem of emerald highlands, 

The death-song sobs for thee. 

The gay magnolia musky-haired and tender, 

Queen-dryad of the scene, 
Snares, in its veil of flower-floating splendor, 

Winged linguists of the green. 

The bright-plumed cedar trails its daintiest pillow 

For nectar-laden bees; 
Kneels, by the lake, the tress-disheveled willow, 

Lone Magdalen of trees! 

The knightly oak, a bulwark swart and brawny, 

Stands by its page the vine ; 
Or hangs its targe, storm-gullied, cleft, and tawny, 

Upon its spear, the pine. 

A dreamy flock of violet creations 

Stare at the anchored clouds, 
Or shrink to see the spectral cypress nations 

Rise gibbering through their shrouds. 



142 JAMES RYDER RANDALL 

Beneath the turban of a tall palmetto, 
Thy scattered warriors kneel, 

Grim pilgrims at their gallant hearts' Loretto, 
With votive bead and steel. 



Upon their hearts, broad bucklers of alliance, 

The scars are greenly dim'd — 
Dread gaps, dread syllables of fierce defiance 

Upon the tiger-limbed. 

'Apart from all, of all the goodliest number 

Are widowed ones, alas ! 
In vain, in vain ye watch for those who slumber 

In lagoon and morass. 

A giant mound, witlT untold ages hoary, 

Outspiraling the strand, 
Bears thee, great chieftain, like a steed of glory, 

Upon the spirit-land. 

From the gray summit of Time's stateliest mountain, 

Age, throned amid the rocks, 
Had shot the avalanche of a thousand-fountain 

In silver down thy locks. 

But now, but now, thy earthliness departed, 

De Leon's fount is won; 
And all the dead who left thee, broken hearted, 

Outgleam the primal sun. 



THE UN BOUGHT SEMINOLE 143 

There Micanopy, with his plumes vermilion, 

Stalks by the glittering ring ; 
There Tustenuggee, 'neath a rich pavilion, 

Ay, "Every inch a King !" 

There Osceola, warlike, wise and sparing, 

Outsoars the belting wave ; 
There Coacbochee, warlike, wild and daring, 

From his bleak Western grave. 

There, the Great Spirit, in his car of thunder, 

Salutes thee with a smile : 
"Live on, my son !" The clouds are rent asunder 

About the funeral pile. 

Dark Withlacoochee caught the magic meaning, 

Triumphant with St. John, 
And bore it on, with every ripple gleaming: 

"Live on ! Live on ! Live on !" 

The comeliest damsels of thy shadowy nation 

Shall sing to thee : "Live on !" 
Shout echo, million-tongued o'er all creation : 

"Live on ! Live on ! Live on !" 

The lyric gales, in soft melodious motion, 

Thrill the harp-pines : "Live on !" 
While throbs the everlasting dirge of ocean : 

"Live on ! Live on ! Live on !" 



THE WILLOW 

MY parent stem was nurtured in the soil 
Of St. Helena, near the grave of him 
Who shook the world in many a battle-broil, 

And died a captive where dark waters swim, 
In that lone isle of Af ric's subtle coil — 
A memory no time or age may dim. 

Torn from that ever memorable tree, 
I was borne long and weary miles away, 

Across a mighty waste of restless sea, 
To be enrooted in the honored clay 

That guards the noblest son of Liberty 
Asleep, awaiting the eternal day. 

So, after mingling with heroic dust — 
Napoleon, Washington — I came at last 

To find a final resting place, I trust ; 

Where the Savannah's tawny tide glides past 

A city venerable and august — 

In a glad garden I was fondly cast. 

I bravely grew, wooed by a Southern sun, 
A graceful tree, with opulence of tress. 

The vital sap through all my fibers spun, 
And dainty damsels gave me their caress. 

A lovely matron all my senses won, 
And so I longed her happy home to bless. 
144 



THE WILLOW 145 

Anon, the winter stripped me of my leaves, 
Until I stood disheveled and forlorn ; 

But still my tropic heart clung to the eaves 

Of that dear household, in the night and morn. 

Soon the lord Spring, who blesses and reprieves, 
Poured emerald largess o'er my features worn. 



How have I thrilled when they I loved were gay, 
In the warm sunshine and the alert breeze ! 

When round the festal board wit ruled the day 
And wisdom was espoused to pleasantries. 

How have I wished such happiness could stay, 
Unsmitten always with sad memories ! 



Alas ! there came a dread, dissolving scene 
To snap the jocund circle of my friends ! 

So, one by one, they fled all things terrene, 
To seek the mystic shore that never ends — 

Where mortal must on the immortal lean, 
Where the true ideal with the real blends. 



The reverend grandsire left my grateful shade 
And baby eyes beheld my form no more ; 

The dazzling lawyer in the sod was laid ; 
The keen preceptor fell, with all his lore ; 

The brilliant master slumbers in the glade — 
Not lost, but in due meekness gone before. 



146 JAMES RYDER RANDALL 

Still lingers my sweet matron, gravely bright, 
With stalwart sons and daughters tall and grand. 

They stand between her and the ghosts who might 
Become a mournful, melancholy band. 

I watch her, when the hours are aflight, 
Her gaze uplifted to the shining strand ! 

Perchance, you think a willow has no tongue, 
No sentient touch, nor article of speech, 

No power to soothe the heart, in anguish wrung, 
No message to impart or moral teach. 

But lo ! a poet all my dreams has sung, 
And who that sorcery will dare impeach ? 



FAR OUT AT SEA 

FAR out at sea ! far out at sea ! 
The winged wind warbles melody ; 
The billows fringe their curls of foam, 
And tremble back with thoughts of home ; 
I stream my soul on every crest 
That gambols onward to the west — 
Tis freighted, love, with hope and thee. 
Far out at sea ! far out at sea ! 

Far out at sea ! far out at sea ! 

The petrels soar the surge with glee ! 

The livelong day they skim the air, 

The livelong night they slumber there — 

Wild, wand'ring souls of those who sleep 

Beneath the coral-citied deep, 

And from the shades heart-break to be 

Far out at sea ! far out at sea ! 

Far out at sea ! far out at sea ! 
The bird-like bark flew merrily ! 
The day-god slept — his bride on high 
Wove isles of light o'er wave and sky ; 
On, on we flew, and from the wake 
What moon-enameled beauties break! 
147 



148 'JAMES RYDER RANDALL 

A vapory veil of silver bars 
Entangled in a sky of stars — 
Supernal visions came to me 
Far out at sea ! far out at sea ! 

Far out at sea ! far out at sea ! 
The raven screams upon the lee ; 
The storm-king rides the lightning now, 
And wreck and ruin bare his brow — 
A gallant ship, descending fast, 
Is whirled beneath the waters vast, 
And with her in the whelming tide, 
The loveliest child that ever died 
In faith, in purity and pride ! 
One fair white arm upon her breast, 
One sunny curl lost from the rest, 
And there she lies — sweet Melanie! 
Far out at sea ! far out at sea ! 

Far out at sea ! far out at sea ! 

And art thou happy, Melanie? 

Oh, in thy grand and mystic grave 

Beneath the blue, blue tropic wave, 

Dost see, sweet child, the diamond blaze 

Upon the Nereid of old days — 

Dost hear the choral song of shells, 

More musical than golden bells — 

And in thy ocean jubilee 

Dost think of him who loveth thee ? 

Far out at sea ! far out at sea ! 



ARCHITECTURE 

GONE — gone the spires, and pinnacles, and fanes, 
I built upon the mist-isles of the past, 
Naught but a hollow Babylon remains 
Of all the bright, adorable, and vast ; 
Still I make miraculous amends 
By hewing Meccas from your hearts, my friends ! 

Welcome ! ye passionate rills that cleave my brain, 
Blest with ebullient melodies of morn — 

While 'mid the plumed battalia of the cane 
Throb the red sun-flags by encrimsoned corn ! 

Here, where the forest with the field contends, 

I'll sculpture immortalities, my friends ! 

Imperial Heart ! that blossomed into mine 

Hot with eleusia of electric youth — 
Friend of my boyhood ! a majestic shrine 

I chisel from that burning heart of truth. 
Where the parched gulls to velvet waves descend, 
Be thou my Monolith of Faith, my friend ! 

Devoted Heart ! that bore mine, like an ark, 
Through the blind deluge of disease and care, 

Giving it shelter in the light when dark 

And hideous fortunes throttled with despair — 

While the glad planets o'er the globe impend, 

Be thou my Battlement of Pride, my friend 1 

149 



ISO 'JAMES RYDER RANDALL 

Undaunted Heart ! that into mine hath poured 
The subtle wine-blood of its lusty praise — 

A living bulwark, with its shield and sword, 
When I had fallen upon coward days ; 

O, could I to ethereal worlds ascend, 

Thy heart should be my Pantheon, my friend ! 

Maternal Heart ! that charmed mine in the path 
That glideth to the splendor of the Throne, 

And soothed it, blistered in the climes of wrath, 
And kissed it, shud'ring from the abyss of moan, 

The sweet, sweet skies, like incense, interblend 

About the Altar of thy Heart, ray friend ! 

And thou — who comest like a meteor-beam 
To quell me in the zenith of my pride — 
Thou — thou who mockest me with that fatal gleam 
Which gave me but the ghost-world for a bride- 
Woe ! woe ! the palaces I wrought depart, 
And all my necromancy is a tomb — my Heart. 






GUIDO'S AURORA 

THE golden sun, with four tremendous steeds, 
Cleaves the glad air, above the flowery meads ; 
The girdling hours, in dazzling dyes bedight, 
Laugh the Light-bearer into headlong flight, — 
Dazed by effulgence of the God of Day, 
Aurora melts in mystery away — 
Flees to the night, that vanished at her birth, 
And yields the sun dominion of the earth. 



W 



PALINODIA 

THOUGH it leave me ashes, I will thrust 
This Etna from my breast ; 
My times have been tumultuous, they shall know 
The ecstasy of rest. 

They marred the work of heaven when they scoff'd 

My unpolluted truth — 
Oh, it was death to feel the venom-dews 

Trickling the veins of youth ! 

My mind was swung in blindness, like a cloud, 

O'er caverns of despair ; 
My soul was a dead Carthage, with a doomed 

And baffled Roman there. 

Stung by the blare and trespass of the world, 

I cursed it, on my knees, 
Where, in its cell, monastic Amazon 

Hymns to the cloistered trees. 

I wrestled with my soul when twilight fowls 

Began their rigadoon, 
Where the lost cypress, like Ophelia, mourns 

Above the gaunt lagoon. 
152 






PALINODIA 153 

Yes! I have pillaged the forbidden boughs 

Of all their stealthy lore ; 
The fruit that shed its dust upon my lips 

Was from Gomorrha's shore. 

Love ! I will cleanse those lips at Siloe's pool, 

Incumbent to the sod ; 
I look upon my past, as pagans look 

Upon their cloven god. 

Love ! I will kneel at holier knees again, 

With sin-abashing brow, 
And learn a new philosophy from faith 

To save me from the slough. 

Love ! it was thy meek eyes and gentle words 

That gave my spirit sight ; 
And it will follow thee to higher lands 

Through the dim Vale of Night. 



ISIS 

MY friend, the young artist, is clever and kind, 
With a broad Roman forehead and deep Ger- 
man heart; 
And though but a tyro, I cannot be blind 
To his whimsical skill and his exquisite art. 

I laugh at his quips, as I lounge in his room, 
Where we gin the grum world with its duns and its 
debts, 

Till spun by philosophy out of the gloom, 
And Calle Obispo's divine cigarettes. 

Anon we play chess, with the odds of a pawn, 
On an arabesque baize full of goblins and Circes ; 

You should see how he strangles a masculine yawn 
As I gasp out my last little spasm of verses. 






Tis the game of my life, this game of the squares, 
For my Queen of White Chessmen is coy as the 
stars ! 

When a bishop, like Dunstan, snakes up unawares 
And soon there is nothing but death — or cigars ! 

ISA 



154 






ISIS 155 

Cotillions of smoke swirl the curtains and walls 
By a swart old Tertullian, all gnarled and knotty ; 

And then in quadrilles, as it stifles and crawls 
On a muscular torso by Buonarotti. 

Here Leviathan gores through a shock of harpoons — 
There, Lazarus mumbles his crust on the sod — 

Afar, in this carnival dance of cartoons, 
Hypatia glares on the crucified God ! 

Here, Scanderberg gashes the Ottomite van — 
There, the dulcimer damsel of Kubla is heard — 

Hard by, a neat sketch of the crafty old man 
We have sent to inveigle Napoleon the Third. 

There are foils on the arras and shields on the stair, 
While an arquebuse bosses the lank balustrade ; 

And trailing just over that worm-eaten chair 

Is a woman's white dress with its bodice and braid. 

The visions of youth are the wizards of thought, 
No matter how gusty, no matter how good ; 

How many have married the woman they sought — 
How seldom we marry the woman we should ! 

I sprang from the couch, till I stood by the side 
Of my friend, as he gazed at the bodice and dress ; 

"This way," whispered he, "and I'll show you a bride 
Not to wed but to worship — to sing not to bless." 



156 'JAMES RYDER RANDALL 

Dear God ! as the picture the painter unsealed, 
The curtain was shriveled away to a scroll— 

I felt that an Isis of Eld was revealed, 
That Isis I veiled in the crypt of my soul ! 



Those pure melting eyes float that mystical gauze, 
Which prophecy weaves on the sight and the hair 

Of those that peer down the death-vistas and pause 
O'er the slab and the violets waiting them there. 

There's a fountain of tears by the fountain of mirth, 
As twilights are thin 'twixt an old and new leaven ; 

And if not a paladin hero of earth, 

She could make me a passionate pilgrim of heaven. 

Ah, the glove's on the mantel, the rose in the glass, 
The name in the Bible upon the blank page, 

And the very same rosary fingered at mass 
Coiled by the canary bird — dead in its cage. 

O beautiful child of a beautiful morn ! 

There's a beautiful bodice begemming thy breast, 
But it speaks of the cerement, that seraphs have worn, 

And it tells of a nightingale slain in its nest. 

And I gaze, and I gaze, and I gaze, till the moon, 
With its irised aureola, sleeps on her brow — 

My Isis ! thy image departed too soon, 

For I gaze and I gaze on thy vacancy now. 



ISIS 157 

beautiful child of a beautiful day ! 
There's a beautiful song on thy Sibylline lip ; 

But it sings of the breaker that boils in the bay, 
And it dirges the doom of a desolate ship. 

Lost — lost, long ago ! and she dreams o'er the sea, 
Where the rude Saxon daisies above her have blown ; 

1 know that the angels are angry with me, 

For the woman is dead that my spirit hath known ! 



LINES ON GROWING OLD 

I KNOW not why, in my old age, 
That I am poor and in distress; 
A vigorous prisoner in a cage, 
Alert in mind, with health to bless ; 
Ripened in years, with wiser ways 
Than in my callow youthful days. 
I am forsaken — in the cold, 
Only because I have grown old. 

What matters that, in worldly strife, 
I lead an upright, temperate life — 
Have vital sap in all my veins 
And summer lightning in my brains — 
What matters that I still can write 
Up to my once meridian flight — 
To every plea one tale is told : 
"We want you not ; you are too old !" 

But God knows why I am forlorn: 
There is a better brighter land 
Where Lazarus, in eternal morn, 
Sees Dives with his burning brand. 
Thus helmeted with Faith and Hope, 
I cheerly wait the coming end, 
Content on this poor earth to grope, 
So I, one day, to God ascend ! 
158 



I'M NOT A POET NOW 

LADY dear, the living flame 
Is ashes on my brow ; 
My days are done, ere half begun- 
I'm not a poet now ! 

I never ask a pretty girl 

To roam beneath the moon, 
I never beg the deaf, deaf stars 

To sprinkle down a boon ; 
I never write a sonnet, and 

I scorn to make a bow — 
No use of so much fuss, I swear— 

I'm. not a poet now ! 

I never babble of the sea, 

I much prefer a pool, 
I never try to steal a kiss— 

I am not such a fool ! 
I never read Anacreon Moore, 

Too trashy far, I vow; 
Lord Byron is a dreadful bore— 

I'm not a poet now ! 

I never flirt in coquette's eyes, 
With handkerchief or fan, 

I never squander dimes upon 
The hurdy-gurdy man ; 
iS9 



160 JAMES RYDER RANDALL 

I'm curious in statistics of 
The anvil and the plow — 

They know me at the calaboose— 
I'm not a poet now ! 

I never wander, like a loon, 

Amid the "shades of night" — 
I hate your "charming solitudes," 

They give me such a fright; 
I like a squalling baby and 

Am partial to a row, 
Besides, I am getting very fat — 

I'm not a poet now ! 



When Mary sings Italian airs 

I lose my self-command, 
And wish her "Casta Diva" off 

To good old Dixie Land ! 
When Sophie simpers for the dance, 

I swear I know not how — 
Too big to play such monkey-pranks— 

I'm not a poet now ! 



I'm working on the principle 

That two and two make four- 
Believe the soul of music's in 

The dray-wheels at the door ; 
Would rather have a shilling piece 

Than Homer's laurel bough — 
I'm in the pork and bacon line — 

I'm not a poet now ! 









I'M NOT A POET NOW 161 

In callow youth I churned my mind 

For happiness and fame, 
While sleep evoked the misty worlds 

Melodious with my name ; 
But nevermore the dusty days 

Those fantasies allow : 
The cobwebs of the brain are gone — 

I'm not a poet now ! 

Lady dear, the living flame 

Is ashes on my brow ; 
My days are done, ere half begun — 

I'm not a poet now ! 






SARCASTIC 

LOUD Sir, I am 
— Myself o'erthrown 
By your tremendous racket ; 
But let us see 
In what degree 
That you and I most lack it. 

A wise old saw 

Hath made it law — 
(Now all your ears displaying) 

That lions quell 

Their roar a spell 
When jackasses are a-braying. 



162 



SILHOUETTE 

LADIES and gallants, well a day! 
If ride ye must, and will not stay, 
Ah, do not ride in midmost May ! 

Lassie! be sure to take your brother; 
Laddie! go not without grandmother; 
Lassie and laddie, take no other! 

For I have been the dupe of blisses — 

My malison on blonden Misses, 

With cherry mouths lip- full with kisses; 

And jaunty hats with ribboned bows, 
And beaded basques and — heaven knows 
What gilded pitfalls full of woes ! 

Dear little bread-and-butter chit, 

You jilted me I must admit — 

And split my heart — the deuce a bit ! 

I swore the jewel of Giamschid 
Than you less excellency hid ; 
You thought so too — you know you did. 
163 



164 JAMES RYDER RANDALL 

And yet you made a famous fool 
Of one a lastrum since from school ; 
I'm on the penitential stool. 

With groan and grimace acrimonious, 
I vote all flirting most erroneous, 
And bivouac with Saint Antonius, 

I'll make the calaboose my bunk, 
I'll delve in some monastic trunk ; 
'Twere highly proper to get drunk ! 

I'll sing 'Am Rhein in the Casino- 
Become obstreperous with Blineau ; 
In divers ways I'll breeze my spleen, oh \ 

Lycanthropy to me is placid ; 

I'll out-strut e'en Haroun Alraschid— 

Read Werter, too, for prussic acid. 

All womankind shall learn to rue it ; 
I'll drench my locks with mutton suet, 
And guard the corners — young men do it ! 

Upon reflection, I will not 
Become an interesting sot, 
And sprout a nasal apricot ! 

Philosophy shall be obeyed ; 

I'll puff my meerschaum in the shade, 

And live to see you an old maid! 



SILHOUETTE 165 

A starch old maid with snuff and chat, 
With crimped curls and — think of that — 
A fusty parrot and — a cat ! 

I have your tiny gloves hard by ; 
You gave them to me with a sigh — 
They're torn and faded — so am I. 

I banquet on them with my looks, 
I haunt the meadow — tangled brooks, 
And sift dried jasmines from my books. 

And brooding o'er them, wrath is felled ; 
I only see the hands that held, 
Becking me ever back to Eld ! 

Yes — yes ! I do forgive the Past ; 
And though your stars be overcast, 
I'll deem you loveliest to the last. 

But I shall ride no more away, 

In kingly cavalier array, 

In midmost love — in midmost May I 



MALISON 

1 PROMISED no reproach, Elise, 
Though all thy flimsy vows were fickle ; 
My slender-necked anemones 

Have perished by thy crafty sickle : 
Well ! let them go, though soiled and stolen, 
And headless, too, as Anna Boleyn — 
Ay, let them go, though debonair 
With hazel, poppy-perfumed hair. 
I'll not reproach, Elise, but I 
Will make my malediction lie 
Upon thee, feathery as a sigh ; 
Till from abysmal peaks of woe 
My curse shall shroud thee with its snow ; 
Softly upon that forehead fair, 
Crisping the poppy-perfumed hair, 
Its winnowing ice-birds lilt and go, — 
But no reproach, Elise, oh no — 
Only the rustle of the snow ! 
Twill skim thy throat not rude or redly — 
Its dapper feet, 
Slippered with sleet, 
Shall into thy bonnet and bosom retreat 
With a stinging like snow, 
Which is woe — 
Only my curse, my curse you know ! 
166 



MALISON 167 

Not rude or redly — 
Nothing but snow ! 
As shy — as smooth — as cool — as slow — 
As deadly. 



MADAME LA GRIPPE 

WHERE the seas meet the land, and the land quits 
the seas, 
The universe shakes with a terrible sneeze : 
The Czar in his palace, the serf in his hut, 
Explode all alike when the nostril is shut ; 
The saint's holy person is no more exempt 
Than the sinner whom Satan refuses to tempt. 
The pest of the air takes a world-waking trip, 
And its banners are blazoned : "Beware of La Grippe" 

We heard of it first where Peter the Great 
Made the marsh of the Neva the heart of his State. 
It crumpled the Cossack, and then, in the morn, 
Crossing the Balkans, captured the fair Golden Horn. 
The Sultan dropped down with a bigness of head 
That made his whole harem afraid of the dead, 
For a microbic Skobeleff rushed with a skip 
And held old Byzantium fast in La Grippe. 

The Berlin professors went down in despair 

And their scholars tore Greek, by the roots, from their 

hair; 
The Titans who humbled the nations grew weak, 
While their battle-cry sank to a sad nasal squeak. 

168 






MADAME LA GRIPPE 169 

The junker dejectedly sipped at his beer, 
Then turned from the stein in a transport of fear ; 
The White Lady scare and the pale Phantom Ship 
Were nothing in horror to Madame La Grippe! 

Zigzagging along on the Baltic's bleak strand, 
It crossed the grim channel to sturdy England : 
The eloquent Gladstone lost power of speech, 
And Salisbury took to his bed with a screech ; 
The Queen drank hot toddy of fine Irish make, 
And dreamed that Parnell was attending her wake 
With a dark, scowling visage and sinister lip, 
Disguised in the raiment of Madame La Grippe! 

Astride of the cable, by British emprise, 

It shot to the land of the free and the wise : 

The Bostonese stomach disdained pork and beans, 

And lived on a diet of antipyrines ; 

New York heard the figure of Liberty whoop 

Like a child in the closest embrace of the croup ; 

The scissors were dropped from Coupon's keen clip 

As Wall Street went mad in the waltz of La Grippe!. 

On the wings of a blizzard, it flew to the West, 
With a wild and a woolly rheumatic behest : 
Chicago surrendered at once the World's Fair 
And took a first prize in the Prince of the Air ; 
The big bulk of Barnes was a rampart of might, 
But it sank at the shock of this malefic sprite. 
East and West, West and East, with a roar and a rip, 
Crashed the thunderous footfall of Madame La Grippe! 



i ;o JAMES RYDER RANDALL 

The moral, perchance, is not proper to hide, 

It levels at once our poor human pride : 

We are all in the clutch of invisible foes, 

And the elements fill us with blessings and woes ; 

We have brotherhood bonds to pay at our ease, 

In all the vast circle of health and disease ; 

But little it matters, whatever may slip, 

So Providence shield us from Madame La Grippe! 



NIGHT AND DAY 

NIGHT above and night below — 
Into the night you saw me go 
With the midnight of my woe. 

Had I never sought your side, 
You had never wrung my pride ; 
Then my faith had never died. 

I was mad to think you dear — 
Madder far to kiss the spear — 
Maddest, that I lingered here. 

Welcome back, good pilgrim staff! 
Truth is wind, and Love is chaff — 
Both are winnowed by a laugh. 

Hola ho ! I will depart, 

Though seditious tear-drops start — 

Though each footfall stabs my heart ! 

Sink or swim I'll tempt the stream, 
In your eye's repellent beam 
Tombing what I dared to dream. 

Day above and day below — 
Into the day you'll see me go, 
With the daybreak-stars — heigho. 
171 



ADIEU 

ADIEU! adieu! 
Bright eye of blue, 
With ebbless oceans in thy hue ; 
Unloved, unblest, 
I cannot rest, 
While thou art waving to the West. 

His prayer surceased, 

The Golden Priest 
Hath chanted Masses in the East ; 

And soon will skim 

The river's rim, 
To sing his dying vesper hymn. 

I think— I think, 

If I could sink 
Beyond this juggling orbit's brink, 

That I might drown 

The Demon's frown 
Where suns and satellites go down. 

Farewell! farewell! 
My bonnie belle, 
I dungeon what I cannot quell; 
172 



ADIEU 173 

Distraction's slave, 
I weep and rave, 
While prophets warn me from the grave. 

A wretch abhorred, 

I broke my sword 
Upon the buckler of the Lord ; 

I feel the shock, 

Upon my rock, 
While the foul condors round me flock. 

Adieu! adieu! 

Sad eye of blue ; 
IVe wrecked my life within thy hue. 

I grieve, I grieve, 

And yet I live 
To know the future God may give. 



LA FETE DES MORTS 

PEACE to the dead ; though the skies are chill, 
And the north wind waileth coarse and shrill ; 
Peace to the dead ! though the living shake 
The globe, with their brawling battle-quake ; 
Peace to the dead ! though peace is not 
In the regal dome or the pauper cot ; 
Peace to the dead ! there's peace, we trust, 
With the pale dreamers in the dust. 

Roses and pansies guard them well, 

Tinging triumphant immortelle ; 

Minions of Doubt, we bend the knee 

To the kings and queens of mystery. 

Storm and sunshine, mist and rain, 

Do ye knock at their marble doors in vain ? 

And ye, sepulchral cliffs of night, 

Do ye rise to appal their shadowed sight? 

O Darkness! thy mission is not just 

To the pale dreamers in the dust. 

Peace to the mother, there beguiled 
With her frozen lily — her deathless child ; 
Peace to the father and his mate, 
Peace to the lowly and the great, 
i74 



LA FETE DES MORTS 175 

Peace to the maidens as they rest 
With the cross on the cold and waxen breast ; 
Peace to the soldier, blossom and bud, 
For he fell with the sacrament of blood ; 
Peace to the dead ! there's peace, we trust, 
With the pale dreamers in the dust. 

Father ! if peace is not with them, 
Where shall we seek for the subtle gem? 
Tis not of the Earth, for we lose it here, 
And death is the gate of the golden sphere. 
Father! Thy mercies cannot cease; 
Crush us, but give Thy sleepers peace. 
Smite us, Redeemer, if Thou must, 
But pardon the dreamers in the dust ! 



SUNDAY REVERY 

BEYOND my dingy window pane 
This beamy Sunday morn, 
I watch the red-breast on the vane 

And the ravens robbing corn ; 
Hard by, the Alabama boils 

Its sallow flood along, 
With driftwood biers and forest spoils- 
A melancholy throng ! 



The rich horizon melts away 

To an illumined arch, 
With summer tresses all astray 

Upon the brows of March ; 
The birds, inebriate with glees, 

Seem happiest when they sing, 
Thrilling the aromatic trees 

With symphonies of Spring. 



The pulse of nature throbs anew, 
Impassioned of the sun ; 

The violet, with eyes of blue, 
Is modest as a nun. 
176 






SUNDAY REVERY. 177 

The roses reck not of the strife 

That crashes up the North ; 
Alas ! the mockery of life 

When Death is striding forth! 

An alien in this lonely land, 

I sound an alien strain, 
Until my own fair State shall stand 

Inviolate again ; 
The long-lost Pleiad of our sky 

Is glimmering still afar, 
And nations yet shall see on high 

That bright and blessed star. 

The church bells toll their solemn chime, 

From out the minster eaves, 
Knelling some old religious rhyme, 

Half stifled by the leaves. 
A thousand miles away, I hear 

Those grand Cathedral notes, 
Which made my youth a fairy sphere 

With cymbal-clashing throats. 

Vibrating to each sturdy tone, 

My soul remembers well 
The mild Madonna's statue-stone 

Within its ivory cell; 
The ritual read, the chanting done — 

The belfry music roll'd, 
And all my faith, like Whittington, 

Was in the tales it told ! 



178 JAMES RYDER RANDALL 

And, oh ! I feel as men must feel 

Who have not wept for years ; 
Upon my cheek behold the seal 

Of consecrated tears. 
A mighty Sabbath calm is mine 

That baffles human lore, 
A resurrection of Lang Syne, 

A guiltless child once more. 

And mother's schoolboy with his mimes, 

This beamy Sunday morn, 
Forgets the grim, tumultuous times 

That hardened him in scorn — 
Forgets terrific ocean days 

Beyond the tropic gates, 
Where the Magellan clouds down-gaze 

On Patagonian Straits. 

He nothing heeds the long despair 

Within the savage swamp, 
The jungle and the thicket where 

The serpent tribes encamp; 
He little heeds the dream of Fame, 

Its treason or its trust, 
The hope of a sonorous name — 

A requiem from the dust. 

But oh, he heeds Elysian hours 

That hint of Long Ago ! 
Those dreamful days in college towers 

He never more shall know — 



SUNDAY REVERY 179 

The home he never more may see, 
A Paradise to him — , 

The books he read at Mother's knee 
When her dear eyes grew dim ! 

O Mother — Mother! Tears must fleet 

Along the battle track 
Ere yet thy lonely heart can greet 

Its weary wanderer back — 
A deathless love these tears bespeak, 

For thy devotion shed, 
With thy pure kisses on my cheek, 

Thy blessing on my head ! 






THE PLACE OF REST 

I AM not happy, though my smiles betoken 
The jocund fancies which I do not feel; 
I am not happy, all my hopes are broken 

Upon the world's inexorable wheel. 
'Tis said the dying shed no useless tears, 
And so, I weep not for the vanished years. 

I weep not for them, though they flock around me 

In solitude, and in the noontide glare ; 
I weep not for them, though fond eyes confound me, 

With midnight havened in their realmless stare. 
With jests upon my lips I stand aghast 
O'er the Dead Angel that we call the Past. 

No More ! O terrible, wild word ! the days 
That have been shudder in the iron grave ; 

And lo, I totter on, in blind amaze, 

'Mid the black gulches of th' o'erwhelming wave: 

No star-bright seas, no Pharos-litten shore, 

While the hoarse Raven croaks, "No More ! No More V 

And still I weep not, it may be, alas ! 

That I am hardened into more than stone — 
Ah, happy they whose hearts like brittle glass, 

Break ere the worst of bitterness is known. 
180 



THE PLACE OF RESZ 181 

The cold remain, the gentle pass away, 

In their white innocence — how happy they! 

The drums are clattering in the crowded streets, 
The fife and bugle warlike concords blend, 

The roar of cannon to my soul repeats : 

"Peace, weary one, thy pilgrimage can end — 

There's rest for thee upon the battle field, 

With triumph towering in thy shattered shield l" 



AFTER A LITTLE WHILE 

AFTER a little while, 
When all the glories of the night 
and day 
Have fled for aye ; 
From Friendship's glance and Beauty's winsome smile, 
I pass away, 
After a little while. 



After a little while, 
The snow will fall from time and trial shocks, 

Down these dark locks ; 
Then gliding onward to the Golden Isle, 

I pass the rocks, 

After a little while. 



After a little while, 
Perchance, when Youth is blazoned on my brow, 

As Hope is now, 
I fade and quiver in this dim defile, 

A fruitless bough, 

After a little while. 
182 



'AFTER A LITTLE WHILE 183 

After a little while, 
And clouds that shimmer on the robes of June 

And vestal moon 
No more my vagrant fancies can beguile — 

I slumber soon, 

After a little while. 

After a little while, 
The birds will serenade in bush and tree, 

But not for me ; 
On billows duskier than the gloomy Nile 

My barque must be — 

After a little while. 

After a little while, 
The cross will glisten and the thistles wave 

Above my grave, 

And planets smile ; 
Sweet Lord ! then pillowed on Thy gentle breast, 

I fain would rest, 

After a little while. 



MOTHER AND DAUGHTER 






To my faithful friends, Mrs. Harriet G. Gould and Mrs. 
Harriet G. Jefferies. 

THE true friend is the same, 
In sunshine or in shade, 
In humbleness or fame — 

When Poverty's keen blade 
Suppresses joy and mirth 
And hurls you to the earth. 

True friendship clings alway, 
When false ones swiftly flee. 

In night or in the day, 
Upon the land or sea, 

Fixed like a magnet-heart, 

It never can depart. 

The true and loyal friend 

Is conscious of your faults, 
But, generous to defend 

When the mean critic halts, 
Or makes the worst appear 
Upon his cynic spear. 
184 



MOTHER AND DAUGHTER 185 

I have two noble friends, 

Of high and gracious birth — 
A gift that heaven sends 

Though I am little worth. 
I'm glad to live so long 
For friendship, sweet as song. 

Mother and daughter true 

To Friendship's grand behest, 
All good things come to you 

And be ye ever blest! 
To ye be crowns divine 
Is ever prayer of mine ! 



V. Q&tms fptjerojortat nu& ^zllgions 



1 









WHY THE ROBIN'S BREAST IS RED 

THE Saviour, bowed beneath His cross, 
Clomb up the dreary hill, 
While from the agonizing wreath 

Ran many a crimson rill. 
The brawny Roman thrust him on 

With unrelenting hand — 
Till, staggering slowly 'mid the crowd, 
He fell upon the sand. 

A little bird that warbled near, 

That memorable day, 
Flitted around and strove to wrencH 

One single thorn away ; 
The cruel spike impaled his breast, 

And thus 'tis sweetly said, 
The Robin wears his silver vest 

Incarnadined with red. 

Ah Jesu ! Jesu ! Son of Man ! 

My dolour and my sighs 
Reveal the lesson taught by this 

Winged Ishmael of the skies. 
I, in the palace of delight, 

Or caverns of despair, 
Have plucked no thorns from Thy dear brow, 

But planted thousands there ! 
189 



MAGDALEN 

THE Hebrew girl, with flaming brow, 
The banner-blush of shame, 
Sinks at the sinless Saviour's knees 

And dares to breathe His name; 
From the full fountain of her eyes 

The lava-globes are roird — 
They wash His feet ; she spurns them off 
With her ringlet-scarf of gold. 

The Meek One feels the eloquence 

Of agonizing prayer, 
The burning tears, the suppliant face, 

The penitential hair ; 
And when, to crown her brimming woe, 

The ointment box is riven — 
"Rise, daughter, rise ! Much hast thou loved, 

Be all thy sins forgiven !" 

Dear God! The prayers of good and pure, 

The canticles of light, 
Enrobe Thy throne with gorgeous skies, 

As incense in Thy sight ; 
May the shivered vase of Magdalen 

Soothe many an outcast's smart, 
Teaching what fragrant pleas may spring 

From out a broken heart! 
190 



BEREFT 

THOUGH heaven has gained one angel more, 
My heart, dear God, is wondrous sore ; 
For that bright angel Thou hast won 
Was my sweet lamb, my only son. 

How shall an earthly mother bear 
Such awful anguish and despair ? 
How shall she live, and living, know 
Such depths of overwhelming woe? 

Without Thy aid, dear God, my soul 
Is shipwrecked in a sea of dole ; 
Without Thy rescuing hand, I sink 
Beyond the world's abysmal brink. 

He was my pride, my hope, my joy — 
Ah, bitterest thought, my only boy! 
And now, while night-winds madly rave, 
My heart is buried in his grave. 

Too much I worshiped him, perchance 
Too much I drifted from Thy glance. 
Thou art a jealous God, and Thou 
Hast put Thy crown upon my brow. 
191 



192 JAMES RYDER RANDALL 

I pass beneath Thy rod ; I pray 
To find salvation's thorny way — 
I care not by what pangs beguiled, 
So it but lead me to my child. 

Ah, blessed thought to know that he 
Is safe from sin and misery ; 
That, in the young May of his life, 
He fell unsullied in the strife. 

I treasure up his image fair, 
I kiss his tress of shining hair, 
Thrilling to hope, in heaven, that he 
Will be "the first to welcome me/' 

Within Thy sheltering arms, I place 
My idol, glorified by grace ; 
And, with the dear ones left, my eyes 
Gaze through the gates of Paradise. 



LABOR AND PRAYER 

DESPITE the wisdom of the past, 
From lips prophetic or divine, 
Men wander in this world aghast, 

And ask another saving sign. 
They seek cold Science in her cell, 

With front of brass and feet of clay ; 
And this is what her sibyls tell : 

"The man who labors need not pray !" 

Starving upon this soulless rind, 

The pilgrim, weary with his strife, 
Cries to the proud poetic mind : 

"Sing to us, seer, the psalm of life!" 
The bard, with sensual lore endowed, 

Unclasps his dreamy Book of Fate, 
And answers : "Let the famished crowd 

First learn to labor and to wait !" 

With spirit-hunger humbler grown, 

The seeker lifts his saddened eyes 
To Him whose everlasting throne 

Fills all the earth and all the skies; 
And from that oracle of might, 

Healing the torment of the rod 
List to the accents of delight : 

"The germ of action grows in God !" 
193 



194 JAMES RYDER RANDALL 

The sum of all is : Seek ye first 

The heavenly kingdom Christ restored, 
Exclaiming, with supernal thirst, 

"The glory Thine alone, O Lord l" 
Then shall descend celestial rest, 

Unknown to children of despair, 
The consecration of the Blest, 

In labor, patience, faith, and prayer ! 

Labor, to do the best we may 

In patient kinship with our trust ; 
Faith, to illume the coming day 

That wakes the tragic trance of dust; 
Prayer, to deserve the Guiding Hand, 

Without whose grasp our steps are vain — 
Lord ! to Thy other Living Land 

Link us with that electric chain ! 



B 



CUTHBERT 

EAUTIFUL mother 
Of a beautiful boy, 
Life is Death's brother ; 
Weep not for him 
Who from the world dim 
Rose to the realm of perpetual joy. 

Thank God for giving, 
Thank Him for taking. 
To the Land of the Living 
Cuthbert has flown, 
By the White Throne, 
Where the earth-sleepers in Heaven are waking. 

No mortal bliss 
Can match his above — 
.You've an angel to kiss, 
When you aspire 
To the home of desire, 
Filled with an infinite Mercy and Love. 

Always to you 

He will be glorious, 

"Tender and true." 

Out of great sorrow 
Comes a bright morrow, 
When your strong soul will meet him victorious. 

195 



196 'JAMES RYDER RANDALL 

He went before 
To lead you aright, 
To endure and adore. 
Free from all stain, 
You shall meet him again, 
Crowned and caressed in kingdoms of light. 



Better by far 

To know he is blest, 

Like a radiant star, 

Than bruised by the blow 
Of the world in its woe- 
Better God's wonderful, mystical rest. 



Happy is he, 

Made a present to God, 

That his mother might see 
Her way to the skies, 
By the path of the wise 
Where the chosen who triumph in anguish have trod. 



Christ, in His passion, 
Teaches your heart 
How sadness may fashion, 
With wonderful grace, 
The soul for its place 
Where mothers and children have never to part. 



CUTHBERZ 197 

Cling to the Cross 

That was sent you to save 

From terrible loss, 

Till you have risen 
From the tomb's prison, 
Welcomed by Christ who has conquered the grave! 



LOST AND SAVED 

WHEN thou wert born into the world, 
My darling little child, 
A robin sought the window sill 

And piped its "wood-notes wild," 
When thou wert laid away to rest, 

Beneath the churchyard clay, 
A robin came a second time 
To sing a mournful lay. 

Did the bird come to solace me 

With message from the skies, 
When thou wert welcomed to the eartH 

And then to Paradise ? 
Was it thy guardian spirit, love, 

That met me, first and last, 
Across the sparkling bridge that spans 

The Future and the Past? 

Dear robin, with the tender heart, 

I know how it is said 
Your snowy bosom once became 

A holy tint of red. 
'Twas on the Saviour's thorny crown 

You bruised your dainty breast, 
And unto you and Him I come 

For comfort and for rest. 
198 



LOST AND SAVED 199 

LorH ! tHou hast given me a child 

And taken her away ! 
'Behold me prostrate in the dust, 

A mourner night and day. 
My heart is empty and my soul 

Rebellious in Thy sight — 
Grant me the boon of perfect trust, 

And lead me to the light. 

Teach me that it was surely best 

My one ewe lamb should go 
Beyond the starry gems of night 

And wilderness of woe. 
Teach me that on some radiant shore, 

Beyond th' eternal main, 
I shall behold her glorious eyes, 

And clasp her form again ! 

Lord ! I am in the Vale of Death ! 

No beacon burns within ; 
Send me a vision of my child 

To break the spell of sin. 
Bid her come as a bird and say : 

"Mother, look up and see 
How I am saved for endless joy-** 

Sweet mother ! follow me ! 

"Had I remained upon the earth", 

As you so fiercely prayed, 
There would have come a dismal fate 

To grieve your little maid. 



200 JAMES RYDER RANDALL 

Sorrow and sickness and despair 
Would toss my soul about, 

Till I should live a life of pain 
And die the death of doubt. 

"Christ, in His mercy and His love, 

Has spared your darling this, 
Giving instead a home divine 

And everlasting bliss. 
Lo ! He has bid me fly to you, 

And in the twilight dim, 
Reveal how I was called away 

To lead you on to Him ! 

"Mother ! the faith that guides to God 

Will bring your soul to me ; 
There is no other certain way 

Your cherub child to see. 
Close not your ears to this appeal 

That calms all human strife, 
Making the gloomy grave itself 

The Golden Gate of Life ! 

"The love that shall not lose its own 

Must seek celestial fire — 
Must light its torch by Heavenly flame, 

And not the Pagan pyre. 
Mother ! dear mother ! hear your child 

And let her win you where 
The King of Glory sits enthroned 

With 'angels bright and fair/ 



LOST AND SAVED 201 

"And when the hour shall come for you 

To bid the world farewell, 
I shall be hovering o'er your couch 

To hear the dying knell ; 
And you shall see me, robed in white, 

With the red-breast in my hand, 
Thrilling to guide you gently on 

To the Eternal Land !" 

My child ! I hear thy voice and heed — 

I go to God and thee ! 
Lead thou me on to thy abode 

Beyond the sapphire sea ! 
And while thy little body sleeps 

Among the birds and flowers, 
I know thy sinless spirit soars 

In happier skies than ours ! 



RESURGAM 

TEACH me, my God, to bear my cross, 
As Thine was borne ; 
Teach me to make of every loss 

A crown of thorn. 
Give me Thy patience and Thy strength 

With every breath, 
Until my lingering days at length 
Shall welcome death. 

Dear Jesus, I believe that Thou 

Didst rise again, 
Instil the spirit in me now 

That conquers pain. 
Give me the grace to cast aside 

All vain desire, 
All the fierce throbbing of a pride 

That flames like fire. 

Give me the calm that Dante wrougHt 

From sensual din ; 
The peace that errant Wolsey sought 

From stalwart sin. 
I seek repose upon Thy breast 

With child-like prayer ; 
Oh let me find the heavenly rest 

And mercy there ! 
202 



RESURGAM 203 

If I have, in rebellious ways, 

Profaned my life ; 
If I have filled my daring days 

With worldly strife; 
If I have shunned the narrow path 

In crime to fall — 
Lead me from th' abode of wrath 

And pardon all ! 

Banished from Thee ! where shall I find 

For my poor soul 
A safe retreat from storms that blind, 

Or seas that roll? 
Come to me, Christ, ere I, forlorn, 

Sink 'neath the wave, 
And on this blessed Easter morn 

A lost one save ! 



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NOTES 



MARY, MY HEART 

This pure little gem of sentimental verse was probably 
written by Randall in his seventeenth year. A precise 
chronological order would place it as the last of the three 
addressed to the beautiful Mary Girvin. Randall de- 
veloped mature powers at a comparatively early age, as is 
shown in all of these youthful poems, covering a period 
of about five years. Either his love for Mary was not 
returned, or some misunderstanding ensued, the story of 
which may never be known ; but it is sufficient to say that 
this first affection exerted an immeasurable influence on 
the life of the poet, which may be partially traced in his 
poems. 

THE COBRA CAPELLO 

An interesting comparison may be made between these 
somewhat immature verses and Robert Browning's A 
Light Woman. The simile of the latter poem in the ninth 
stanza is Randall's metaphor of "features" that are 
"luscious and mellow." 

CLAY 

This ambitious elegy deals in the general hyperbole 
of praise for great leaders in politics or statecraft. Yet 

207 



208 JAMES RYDER RANDALL 

making due allowance for the accustomed extravagance 
of a popular eulogium of the hour, we observe that the 
poem is marked by apt allusions to history, ancient and 
modern, and by comparisons from literature. The youth- 
ful poet, in writing it on the occasion of the unveiling of 
the Clay statue in New Orleans, won laurels in competition 
with the elegist chosen for the occasion, much to the 
latter's mortification. 

His lispings fell: — refers to his early manhood as a 
young lawyer in Kentucky. 

His trumpet- tones re-echoed: — apt allusion to Clay's 
prominence in the recognition by the United States of 
the South American republics. 

The pillars of the Union quaked — From its rebellious 
foes: — The expression of this stanza is worthy of note as 
showing Randall's attachment to the Union, from which 
less than two years later he felt it was the truest patriot- 
ism fervently to call upon his native State to withdraw, 
as in the lines of My Maryland. The disunion sentiment 
was strong in New England on many occasions in Clay's 
lifetime, and was well remembered in the South, at that 
time most interested in preserving and enlarging the 
Union. Dissatisfaction in New England was expressed in 
Congress at the time of the Louisiana Purchase, the Em- 
bargo Act, the War of 1812, the Annexation of Texas, and 
about the period of the several compromises in which Clay 
figured so prominently. At the time of the unveiling of his 
statue noted Abolitionists were openly denouncing the 
Constitution, and praying for the dissolution of the Union. 
The cause for Randall's change of position, so incompre- 
hensible to anyone failing to grasp the varied and varying 
relations, in history and politics, between the State and 
the Federal prerogatives, is given in the notes to the 
Poems of the War. 



NOTES 209 

ODE TO PROFESSOR DIMITRY; and MARATHON 

By exact chronological arrangement, these two poems, 
written at Georgetown College when the poet was but 
sixteen years of age, should precede the elegy on Clay. 
Both poems attracted the notice of scholars at the time; 
but they were given over to temporary newspaper pub- 
licity and then permitted to pass into oblivion. The high 
praises accorded them by Alexander Dimitry himself, as 
an eminent scholar of his day, are not merely expressions 
of gratification at the impression his lectures had made 
on the mind of the hearer. Their eloquence won favorable 
comparison with the passages of Byron on similar themes. 
They will receive consideration alike with that accorded 
to the lines of the youthful Bryant in his Thanafopsis. 
The boy laureate showed himself, consciously or uncon- 
sciously, master of Tennysonian or Byronic onomatopoetic 
art in the lines: 

" "They smite their shields, they form, prepare, advance : 
Sword splinters sword, lance crashes against lance- 
Away ! the golden lamp swings forth once more, 
And all is mute upon that dreamy shore !" 



THE ORIEL WINDOW 

This poem slightly antedates My Maryland in point of 
time. In its serene peacefulness it forms a striking con- 
trast to the martial lyric that almost immediately followed. 

The bluffs, the breeze, the bulwark trees: — This stanza 
depicts the little chapel of the parish of Pointe Coupee, 
Louisiana, in the early spring of 1861. 

Joliet: — Anglicized pronunciation here, as in the city 



210 'JAMES RYDER RANDALL 

of that name; in the repetition of words and phrases in 

this poem, we instinctively think of the master hand of 

Poe, even to an occasional awkwardness in reading: 

compare clank ill in the tenth stanza with thereat is in 
The Raven. 

HA ! HA ! 

This poem of unique title is one of the most musical 
fantasies in the English language. The barest outline 
in plot and story is to be read simply in the spirit of its 
expression and rhythm. 

Khuleborn: — So written in the only copy of the poem 
to be had. The original manuscript has not been found. 
Dr. James W. Bright, Dr. Basil L. Gildersleeve, and Dr. 
Henry Wood have stated that the word was written for 
the Kiihleborn of Undine, the letters hu having become 
transposed, either by accident or design. 



MARYLAND ! MY MARYLAND ! 

The despot's heel: — In order to appreciate this battle- 
hymn and its terms, we must understand the situation as 
seen by the poet from the Southern point of view. Be- 
ginning early in 1861, radical steps were taken by the 
Federal Government to suppress the pro-Southern sym- 
pathies shown by the people of Baltimore. These may 
briefly be summed up as follows: The suspension of the 
writ of habeas corpus; the proposed imprisonment of 
Chief Justice Taney; the midnight arrests and subse- 
quent confinement, without charge or trial, of some thirty 
members of the State Legislature, besides a number of 
prominent citizens; the employment of spies and inform- 
ers; the seizure and appropriation of private property; 



NOTES 211 

the arrests of clergymen; the suppression of newspapers; 
and the issuing of military orders, such as those directed 
against the Confederate colors, red and white, appearing 
in shop windows or the dress of children. All this and 
more seemed to Southern sentiment in Maryland as the 
"despot's heel," indeed. Without the knowledge of these 
facts, from the Northern viewpoint it is natural that the 
terms of the poem should seem quite "overwrought and 
inaccurate." Maryland found she could not serve two 
masters, however much her citizens might love the South 
while wishing to maintain the Union. (See Baltimore and 
the ipth of April, 1861, by Hon. George William Brown, 
Johns Hopkins University Studies in Historical and 
Political Science.) 

Avenge the patriotic gore: — On the 19th of April a num- 
ber of citizens were shot while obstructing the passage 
of the Sixth Massachusetts on the way south. Four of 
the soldiers and twelve citizens were killed, while scores 
were wounded. The bloodshed would have been much 
more serious, had not the Mayor of Baltimore arrived 
and placed himself at the head of the troops. (See Fran- 
cis Folsom's Our Police, and the bibliography of Baltimore 
and the Nineteenth of April, 1861, prepared by Richard D. 
Fisher, who viewed the march as a "Union" sympathizer.) 

Carroll, Howard: — These ready and apt references, from 
memory, to the gallant sons of his State show that the 
youthful poet was well versed in and deeply inspired by 
the story of their lives. Carroll's sacred trust was as a 
delegate to the Continental Congress that drew up the 
Declaration of Independence. John Eager Howard, lieu- 
tenant-colonel at the Cowpens, achieved national fame. 
Major Samuel Ringgold commanded the American artil- 
lery and was mortally wounded at Palo Alto. His gallant 
services very largely contributed to the winning of that 



212 JAMES RYDER RANDALL 

brilliant victory. Colonel William H. Watson was killed 
while leading his regiment at Monterey. The fearless 
Lowe was Governor Lowe, who took a strong stand for 
the prerogatives of the State against the war measures 
of the Federal Government; as did Henry May. 

And chaunt thy dauntless slogan song: — This verse was 
originally written "And add a new Key to thy song"; 
but in later years, Randall, at the suggestion of several 
critics, notably O. W. Holmes, changed it to the present 
form. Dr. Holmes very properly observed that the pun, 
while a timely local hit, was "violative of true art." 

Sic semper: — Part of the motto of the "Old Dominion." 
The close comradeship of the States of Maryland and 
Virginia was early illustrated in John Hammond's Two 
Sisters, Leah and Rachel, which appeared in 1656. 

I hear the distant thunder-hum:— What a surpassing 
climax does this most spirited war-song attain in this last 
stanza ! Here is summarized in a few lines the passionate 
appealing of the whole poem. The Old Line's bugle, fife, 
and drum epitomizes the chivalrous patriotism of the past 
in song and history. She is not dead, nor deaf, nor dumb 
— Huzza I She spurns the Northern scum. This is the 
poet's cry of greatest intensity, the impassioned call to 
arms reaching the topmost heights of triumphant antici- 
pation. By some mistaken idea of false regard for sec- 
tional feeling, the Maryland societies have, in their pub- 
lications, omitted this closing stanza of their State song. 

We must concede the picture in the mind of the poet, 
formed but a single lifetime from the framing of the 
Constitution and its early interpretations, that Maryland 
could and would rise up in her might to throw off what 
was then regarded as an invasion on behalf of a newly 
arisen political party. The words themselves must be 
read in the spirit in which they were written, that of 



NOTES 213 

poetic imagery, and not interpreted in logical terms or 
narrow literalness. To the poet, Maryland was "a rock 
able to withstand a mighty sea of invasion and repel it 
in foam or scum at its base." As for the invaders, the 
Massachusetts Sixth thought they were "enlisting for a 
picnic," against opponents whom their poets described as 
the "soft-handed race who eat not their bread in the 
sweat of their face." Who has yet suggested the omission 
of these and many other lines in the poems of Oliver 
Wendell Holmes (afterwards Randall's friend and ad- 
mirer), because they might be sentimentally offensive to 
a section of the country? Or of Whittier's lines of in- 
tense appeal To Massachusetts, two stanzas of which are 
given here as containing some of Randall's terms : 

And they have spurned thy word, 

Thou of the old Thirteen! 
Whose soil, where Freedom's blood first pour'd, 

Hath yet a darker green? 
Tread the weak Southron's pride and lust 
Thy name and councils in the dust? 

And have they closed thy mouth, 

And fix'd the padlock fast? 
Slave of the mean and tyrant South ! 

Is this thy fate at last? 
Old Massachusetts! can it be 
That thus thy sons must speak of thee? 

It is safe to say that no brave member of the Massa- 
chusetts Sixth or of any Northern regiment would take 
offense at the expressions of a war-poem of opposite sym- 
pathies or expect it to be written in terms of perfect peace 
and amity. Publishers of the music of Maryland! My 
Maryland! have taken further liberties with the words, 
in which they cannot be justified. Randall's great war- 



2i 4 JAMES RYDER RANDALL 

poem should not be marred. What other has been so 
emasculated? In the oft-repeated call to "Maryland," 
some have found with each repetition a varied appeal, 
more remarkable, because more frequent, than Poe's mas- 
terly use of "Nevermore." 



PELHAM 

This is the one poem of Randall's, other than My 
Maryland, with which the average reader is familiar. 
This may be due to Stedman's reputed fondness for it, 
especially for the seventh stanza. It is certain that it is 
one of the very few of Randall's poems secured for pub- 
lication in collections of American verse. Hence it has 
appeared in many volumes as one of the purest elegies 
brought out by the Civil War. The poet literally "gazed 
and gazed upon that beauteous face" when taken to its 
final resting place in distant Alabama. Pelham was one 
of six sons serving in the Southern Confederacy. He 
met his death on the banks of the Rappahannock, March 
17, 1863. Robert E. Lee referred feelingly to the dash- 
ing youth as "the gallant Pelham." 

Marcellus: — the promising stepson of Augustus, inspired 
Virgil's tribute in the closing passage of the Sixth MnM. 



THERE'S LIFE IN THE OLD LAND YET 

Not to be confused with a song by Francis Key Howard 
under the same title; but as the latter was using the 
same title in quotation, it is presumably subsequent to 
Randall's poem, which was, however, set to music during 
the war under the title: We Sleep, But We Are Not 
Dead. Evidently Randall's poem was written in New 



NOTES 215 

Orleans in the early months of the conflict, as numerous 
references to individuals indicate, while Howard's poem 
appeared in July, 1863. Merryman, Thomas, and Kane 
were all arrested in 1861 and imprisoned in Fort McHenry. 
Kane was the marshal of police in Baltimore at the out- 
break of the war. Compare Whittier's lines — To Massa- 
chusetts: 

The land is roused— its spirit 
Was sleeping, but not dead. 



THE BATTLE CRY OF THE SOUTH 

It is interesting to compare the appeals on either side 
of Randall and Whittier to the Scriptures, in accordance 
with their religious emotions and in expression of their 
convictions of right. As a rule, Whittier calls upon the 
Old Testament, as does Holmes, while Randall quotes 
from the New. This poem is an exception. 



AT FORT PILLOW 

Randall wrote this poem on hearing the news of the 
capture of Fort Pillow by General Forrest in 1864 with 
"little quarter given its garrison," half of whom were 
negroes. It had previously been captured from the Con- 
federates by Federal forces. To events occurring prior 
to Forrest's capture and to a single terrible incident of 
the war does the poem refer, putting the story in the 
mouth of the survivor of three brothers and the "one 
lone sister," and carrying it up to the final capture of 
the fort. 



216 JAMES RYDER RANDALL 

JOHN W. MORTON 

This poem tells an interesting story of the war; but 
in Randall's weakest vein of poetic expression. The 
editor feels that he has no right to exclude it from the 
fellowship of the others of vastly superior merit, taking 
the liberty, however, of withdrawing an even worse addi- 
tion which was written in times of peace, of no especial 
place among war-poems, and which he can scarcely credit 
to the poet's pen. 

THE LONE SENTRY 

This poem, as is the case with My Maryland, has been 
published without the last stanza, with this omission proba- 
bly approved by Randall himself. Here the omission im- 
proves rather than detracts from the whole. The Lone 
Sentry is complete without the last stanza, which was 
probably intended as a temporary appeal to then-existing 
conditions; while Maryland! My Maryland! attains its 
climax of expression in its wrongfully omitted stanza. 
The omitted stanza of The Lone Sentry reads: 

Brothers ! The midnight of our cause 

Is shrouded in our fate — 
The demon Goths pollute our halls 

With fire and lust and hate! 
Be strong, be valiant, be assured — 

Strike home for Heaven and right I 
The soul of Jackson stalks abroad 

And guards the camp to-night. 

ON THE RAMPART 

This is a lyric of love and war. The reader may find, 
if he will, a sentimental ballad that carries on the story. 



NOTES 217 

Randall's travels through the South during the war may 
be traced in his poems. Compare with this poem the 
Charleston of Timrod, referring to the earlier stages of 
the war. 

Moultrie: — The original fortification which repelled the 
British fleet in 1776 was known as Fort Sullivan. Not 
far away is the grave of Osceola, and the scene of Poe's 
Gold Bug. 

Secessionville: — The field of a minor engagement in 
the spring of 1863. 

A hallowed radiance: — A stanza illustrative of Ran- 
dall's art in uniting past and present, chivalry and patriot- 
ism, in poetic expression. 



THE CAMEO BRACELET 

This poem was written in the home of a beautiful 
Jewess, who, related to prominent members of her race 
then serving in the Confederacy in battlefield and in 
cabinet councils, was, like others, sacrificing everything 
material for the good of the cause. The poem is striking 
for its numerous allusions to historical figures and repre- 
sentations. These allusions are all the more remarkable 
because of the off-hand, almost immediate execution of 
the verses by the youthful poet to commemorate the inci- 
dent of the girl's devotion to "the brave who bled." 



PLACIDE BOSSIER 

A tribute to a college friend who fell in battle during 
the Civil War. 



218 JAMES RYDER RANDALL 

ASHES 

The date given under this poem shows that it was 
written in the saddest hours of a cause lost after four 
long years of the most fearful struggle known to modern 
times. And yet how beautiful is the sustaining faith of 
the poet in the expression of the last line ! 

THE UNCONQUERED BANNER 

Written, not so much as a reply, but as a compliment, 
to the Conquered Banner of the Southern poet, Father 
Ryan. 

Our foemen sought: — referring to the dominance of the 
negro and "carpet-bag" rule in Reconstruction. As the 
embers of conflict cooled, it was seen that the South had 
Northern sympathy and moral support in the struggle to 
overthrow, not the fighting men, but the camp-followers 
and the vultures of war, as in "the sordid ban of Shylock 
and the money-changing clan." 

Cesar: — A reference to the vastly increased power of 
the Central Government after the war. Now, let our 
banner — However harsh seems the partial reading of 
Randall's poetic generalities, the whole leaves an impres- 
sion of faith and hope in the future, as here, in "Reunion" 
and "Right." 

ARLINGTON 

The following incident is given by the poet as the in- 
spiration of the poem : 

On the day that the graves of the Federal soldiers buried 
at Arlington were decorated, in 1869, a number of ladies 
entered the cemetery for the purpose of placing flowers on 
the graves of thirty Confederates. Their progress was stopped 



NOTES 219 

by bayonets and they were not allowed to perform their mission 
of love. During the night a high wind arose, and in the 
morning the floral offerings that had been placed the day before 
upon the Federal graves were found piled upon the mounds 
under which reposed the thirty Confederates. 

This poem was Randall's favorite. The simplicity that 
marks it renders comment almost gratuitous. In the opin- 
ion of many this is the most beautiful of all the poems 
inspired by the war or written in memory of it. In such 
a well-nigh perfect lyric there is one expression which 
has been interpreted unfavorably to the tone of sweet- 
ness and charity that marks the thought. But the inci- 
dent was heart-felt and the poet should be forgiven general 
terms applying to specific instances of wrong condemned 
alike by all. The poem is a masterpiece of storied verse, 
melodious, fervid, patriotic and full of the spirit of 
devotion. 

KEATS 

By request of the editor, the following note was kindly 
supplied by Dr. Henry E. Shepherd, with whom this elegy 
has been an especial favorite. 

This poem has a special interest as revealing Randall's 
attitude toward one who, potentially at least, is entitled 
to be among the sovereigns of English song. The de- 
scription of the cemetery in which Keats and Shelley are 
buried is the outcome of Randall's shaping spirit of im- 
agination, as he was never in Rome at any period of 
his life. Keats died from that darling malady of the 
poets, consumption, February, 1821. Shelley was drowned 
in the Gulf of Spizzia during the summer of 1822. His 
body having been cast upon the shore at Viareggio, wts 



220 JAMES RYDER RANDALL 

cremated in the presence of Lord Byron. Upon the slab 
which marks his grave are the words: "Cor Cordium," 
and a most felicitous selection from Shakespeare's 
Tempest. 

In another part of the cemetery is the humble tomb of 
Keats, upon which are inscribed the lines that follow, 
perhaps the most pathetic and appealing known in the 
literature of epitaph: 

This Grave 

Contains all that was Mortal 

of 

A Young English Poet 

Who 

On His Death Bed 

In the bitterness of his heart 

At the malicious Power of his Enemies 

Desired 

These words to be written on his tombstone : 

"Here lies one whose name was writ in water." 

The pyramid of Caius Cestius, to which Randall refers, 
is not far away. The star-eyed skylark of the choir — An 
allusion to Shelley's Ode to a Skylark. 

LINES ON GROWING OLD 

These verses were written by Randall, half jocularly, 
half sadly and seriously, at the time of Dr. Osier's re- 
marks on the age limit of usefulness, a limit the poet had 
already passed. 

I'M NOT A POET NOW 

A great deal of Randall's humorous verse has been lost. 
His humor often reminds us of the clever twists of Oliver 
Wendell Holmes. 



NOTES 221 



SUNDAY REVERY 



Here is given a glance over the past from a sojourn 
in Alabama daring the war. Stanza four is again a call 
to Maryland to join her Southern sister States. 

RESURGAM 

This poem gave incalculable comfort and sustaining 
faith to the poet's friends. It was copied into scrapbooks 
and learned by heart In thought it impels comparison 
with Cardinal Newman's Lead, Kindly Light, but in poetic 
expression it is markedly different. Randall wrote it in 
Washington while secretary to Senator Joseph E. Brown, 
and at that time many prominent men thought it his 
noblest expression in the form of poetry. 



THE END 



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